Aliens From My Past
by Haleine Delail
Summary: Martha Jones and Tom Milligan are set to take a walk down the aisle someday soon... but how does one delicately handle disclosing former relationships, past heartaches, lives once lived, with one's fiancé? When people from their pasts get involved, and all hell breaks loose, handling anything "delicately" becomes moot!
1. Chapter 1

**It's been a loooooong time since the plot bunnies have had me by the throat to the point where I can't help but post something new when I'm still in the throes of something else, but when they burrow in, they're hard to get rid of.**

**So, I'm still hard at work on "Hearts of Calm," and I have absolutely no intention of abandoning it. In fact, I'm nearly finished writing it.**

**This, however, is TOTALLY different! It's still fodder for the Ten/Martha crowd, but its inspiration comes from somewhere more practical.**

**I absolutely love toying with the idea of what Tom Milligan is really like; I mean, we see him as a freedom fighter of sorts in the Year That Never Was, and he's brave and wonderful and smitten with Martha. But what's the REAL man like? What's he like when he's just living his life like anyone else? In my stories, he's run the gamut between being an utter twat, to practically a saint. Sometimes he's just sort of hapless, sometimes he's actively daft.**

**I also enjoy asking myself, what does he really know about Martha's past, especially with the Doctor? Again, in my stories, I've answered that question in different ways...**

**And when I asked the question this time, the answer came... and then it twisted and turned, and grew out of control until the oneshot I'd been planning to write became something else entirely. I've been manic about writing this thing, I think it's pretty juicy, and I really hope you'll enjoy it!**

**And of course, I hope you'll leave a review! ;-) Have fun!**

* * *

ONE

The Doctor sat alone at a table for four, in an interestingly-decorated, chic, crowded bistro in London.

_Okeanós _was a newish Greek-style seafood restaurant, dimly lit where he was sitting, but brilliantly lit in certain places where shades of electric blue were highlighted. The tables and chairs were all classic ornate Mediterranean, painted burning white, and there were rows of tropical fish tanks that served to partition the space – the Doctor's left shoulder was pressed against one of them. Overhead, there was a blue and white circular cloth with a circus-tent type pattern, pulled toward the ceiling just at the centre, and left to drape, soft and billowy, round the rest. It gave the impression of being inside of a coastal bungalow of some sort – the Doctor rather liked it.

What he didn't much like was not knowing exactly why he was there, though he knew that would be remedied quite soon. Earlier in the day, he'd received a frantic phone call from an old friend, asking for a favour. One half of the favour, she had said, would require meeting her here, along with some other people. The rest of the favour she would explain later, and then she would owe him one forever.

"Owe me one _forever_? Don't forget who you're talking to, Martha Jones," he'd said with a smirk. "Don't make empty promises."

"Oh, I haven't forgotten," she'd said. "Not for one second. Honestly – thank you, Doctor. I've got to run now. See you tonight – bye!"

And with that, she'd cut off the call.

And now, as current GMT crawled across the appointed meeting-time, he sat, wondering what the second half of the favour would be (but reckoning it would be worth it to help out the illustrious Dr. Jones). He sighed, drank sparkling water, munched the bread he'd been offered, and watched the pretty people pass.

"And speaking of pretty people…" he muttered to himself as he watched Martha Jones walk round the corner looking absolutely stunning in a shocking red dress that seemed _made_ to splash across this restaurant and pleasantly ruin the haven of white and blue.

She saw him, and made straight for his table, completely ignoring the Greek man in the dark suit who tried to stop her… probably just to greet her and ask whether he could help her.

Myriad thoughts and emotions assaulted him when he saw her...

But he pulled it all under control, as she seemed just as frantic now as she had when he'd spoken to her on the phone. He stood up, and met her just a few feet from the table.

"Oh, Doctor," she groaned, as he kissed her on the cheek. "Thank you for coming."

"No problem," he said, pulling out the chair across from his, for her. She sat, and allowed him to help her push the chair in. He took his place again, and looked her over. "Blimey, you're practically vibrating. What's wrong?"

"Please don't hate me."

"That could never happen," he retorted quickly, earnestly.

"Don't be so sure," she said, worry colouring her incredibly lovely face. "I mean… I've done something bad."

"What?" he wondered.

"Just… seriously, I appreciate your coming here to help me out without knowing the whole story, and when you hear…"

"Martha, just tell me. I won't hate you, and you won't owe me anything. I'm your friend, I want to help. Now spill it."

She took a deep breath, and wrapped both of her hands round one of four glasses of water that had been pre-poured by the Maître d' who had sat the Doctor.

"Okay, here goes," she said. "You know I'm engaged, right?"

"Yes," he said. "To… Tom Milligan, is it?"

"Yeah. Well, over the course of practically any relationship, you… purge."

"Purge?"

"Yeah," she said. "You know… full disclosure of your past, over time. Well, full_ish_. You talk about your hang-ups, you warn your partner of your quirks. You discuss why you are the way you are. You tell them about when you've been hurt, when you couldn't get over something, when you did something to hurt someone else… stuff like that. You unpack the baggage, so that everyone knows what they're getting into… and as I'm saying this, it occurs to me that you might actually have no idea what I'm talking about."

He smirked. "I do know," he said. "Though I'm not the world's greatest in the 'fullish' disclosure department, am I? You'd know that better than anyone."

"You're not," she conceded. "But you and I weren't in a relationship, were we?"

"Well, no, but…"

"Hold that thought," she said. Then she sighed heavily. "In the interest of fullish disclosure, when Tom and I started to get serious and talk about getting married, I felt that he needed to know that I had… recently… been… you know…"

"What?"

"Hurt by someone," she said, very quietly, not making eye-contact.

"Oh," he said. "I see."

"And that I was still somewhat skittish. I'd not got over the rawness of it, et cetera, et cetera."

"Oh, God…" he groaned, pulling his hand down over his face.

"I mean, there were just loads of issues concerning _you_," she continued. "And not just, you know, rather fancying you, and not getting anything back from you."

"Martha, I'm…"

"You're sorry, I know," she cut him off. "It's fine. We don't have time for that. The point is, there was that bit, but then there were issues with Rose. And Jack. And the Master. All of which contributed to my general angst, and like it or not, some of it had – has – the potential to keep me from moving forward. Not irreparably, but you know, it's stuff that a fiancé needs to know. We can't be surprised by each other's baggage down the road. We have to work through things together if we're going to become husband and wife, and eventually be a family and stuff."

"I get that."

"Not to mention, there were some good times," she said. "Stories I wanted to tell. Remarkable things about you that I wanted to boast about. Stuff you said and did, and ways that you made me feel!"

"Glad to hear that some of what you have to say is positive," he mumbled, a bit more poutily than he had intended.

"Stop acting like that, you _know_ that our years together were more good than bad."

"I _think_ they are," he said.

"Anyway, what I'm getting at is… you are a huge part of my life. My time with you is a major factor in who I am – I can't just gloss that over, especially in a new relationship. I _had_ to talk about you, but I didn't know how to explain you," she said.

"Fair enough. I frequently don't know how to explain me either."

"So I told Tom that you're my ex."

"Oh. Okay. That's probably a good idea. I mean... I sort of _am._"

"Doctor… an ex. I let him believe we were in an actual _relationship _for two years. With feelings, and living together, and sex, and discussions of marriage, and domestic arguments about canned tuna… the whole bit."

"Well, we did once have an argument about canned tuna."

"And about how to use a rice cooker, coloured towels, and whether or not to play Russian classical music in the console room."

"Sorry, but Dvořák is creepy. Well, you never met him, but trust me…"

"And yeah, we lived together… for part of the time, anyway, but we didn't have the other stuff, and _that's _where the flesh of a relationship is."

His expression changed. "There were feelings… of a sort."

She sighed. "Okay, look, you know what I mean, right?"

"Yes, you exaggerated our situation, in order to make it easier to understand. Most people would have done the same."

"Exaggerated parts, understated other parts."

"I get it. And it hardly qualifies as having done _something bad_."

She smiled uneasily. "Heh. Stay tuned, love. There's a reason why I'm bothering to tell you about it."

"And that would be?"

"Tom's on his way here now."

"Okay, great," the Doctor shrugged. "Reckoned I should probably meet him at some point."

"As is Sylvie. His ex."

The Doctor's eyebrows went up. "Oh. Wait – what?"

"Yeah," she sighed, and she took a long swig of water. "Tom thought it would be a good idea for us to have dinner with each other's exes present, so we could, you know, hash through some issues before we get married. And I agree, that if we feel we can't be around important people from each other's past, then our relationship can't be considered stable. I mean, on principle, I agree."

"But in practise, not so much?"

"In practise, I lied to him. I mean, I _do _have exes, proper ones, but none of them were really worth mentioning. None of them have…" she trailed off, realising what she was about to say. "None of them have affected me the way you have. And I didn't love any of them the way I loved you."

"Wow," he said, then cleared his throat.

"In practise, how are we supposed to hash out anything, in any real way, when my side of it is based on a lie? How are we supposed to have a cleansing dinner if you and I are constantly having to remember to keep our story straight?"

"Well, what do you want? Do you want to tell him the truth?"

"You know as well as I do that the truth is too weird," she dismissed.

He laughed. "Okay, _touché_. So… what, Martha? What do you want to do? What do you want _me _to do? Lie for you?"

"Well... yeah."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah," he shrugged. "Why wouldn't I?"

"I'm putting you rather hideously on-the-spot."

"And I've never done that to you?"

She chuckled. "Not like this."

"Pff," he said, waving away the comment. "I've asked you to do much worse. Were you not there in 1913?"

"I was, but..."

"These are little white lies - I can handle myself."

She took a long exhale. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it. Because, think about it, Martha: how much of a lie is it, really? The feelings you had, they were real. The residual love, the anger, the pain, the things that give you 'baggage,' as you call it... those are real. If I hurt you, I hurt you - who cares whether we were living in a flat together, or in a time machine?"

"I suppose that's true," she sighed.

"It's what's happening inside you, the feelings you carry... that's what's important. The official nature of our relationship, in this case, is window-dressing."

She chuckled bitterly. "It always sort of was."

Just then, a waiter arrived. He spoke English with a thick Greek accent, and wore a loose-fitting white shirt, with tight black trousers. "Good evening, Madame," he said. "May I bring you a beverage?"

"White wine, please," she responded.

"Very well," said the waiter. "And are we waiting for more guests?"

"Yes, two more," Martha said. She glanced at her watch. "They should be here in ten minutes or so. At least, that's what time I told Tom."

"I'll be back with your wine, Madame, and I will take your friends' orders when they arrive."

"Thanks," she said, as he walked away.

"So you told me six o'clock, and told them half-past, so you could brief me?" he asked her. "Very clever, Dr. Jones."

"Thanks," she said, flatly. "Sorry. I'm just really nervous."

"Don't be. I won't let him find out you lied to him. If I can't improvise, I don't know who can."

She smiled. "You're right - I don't know anyone who can riff like you."

"Okay, so, details. Where did we live?"

"I don't know – hadn't ever thought about that bit."

"Where do I work?"

"All over. You're a consultant."

"A doctor, I assume?"

"Of course."

"My specialisation?"

"I don't know…" she answered, squinting. "I _may_ have told him internal medicines. Or I may not have. Maybe I just think that because it was _my _specialisation."

"Internal medicines it is. What's my name?"

She smiled and rolled her eyes. "John Smith."

He smiled too. "Fitting. And we were together two years?"

"Yes," she said. "We broke up because you seemed to be growing distant, and I'd got tired of trying to re-engage you."

"Oh, dear – what a prat I was," he said. "Do I have any weird quirks?"

"You know you do."

"Well, what are they?"

She chuckled. "You talk a million miles per hour, you wear glasses that you don't need, you always wear the same two suits, and you use the phrase _allons-y _on a semi-daily basis."

"Really? Well, you've invented some interesting affectations for me - how lovely. Now, how fantastic am I in bed?"

Her jaw dropped. "Doctor!"

"Well?" he asked, barely containing a laugh. "I mean, are we talking everyday-fantastic, or off-the-charts fantastic?"

"Yeah, I went down _that _road with my fiancé!"

"I get it, I get it," he conceded, still stifling laughter. "Well, all right, we'll just say _off-the-charts_, but he doesn't need to know it, how's that? We'll just have it as our motivating backstory, yeah?"

She laughed, in spite of herself. "Lovely idea. Not crazy at all."

"'Course not. Anything else I need to know about myself?"

"Erm… well, my mum couldn't stand you and was happy when we broke up," she said.

"Shocking. What else?"

"Rose was your fiancée who died," she said. "You have a sister named Donna. And Tom will be expecting you to be shorter."

He laughed at that. "I'll try and slouch."

In her handbag at that moment, Martha's mobile phone went _ping. _"Do you mind if I check?" she asked the Doctor. He shook his head, and she reached into the little purse, and pulled forth her new Smartphone. "Damn. He's running late. Said something came up, and he had to drive fifteen minutes out of the way_._"

"Well, okay, so we have more time to chat," the Doctor pointed out.

"Yeah," she said, sighing with a smile. "That's a plus. So, what's been going on with you?"

"Well, you know sister Donna is actually gone," he gulped. "Out of my life, anyway."

"I know. No-one new yet?"

"No," he said, again gulping to avoid showing the precise emotion he felt whenever he thought of Donna, which was ugly, weepy, rage. "I don't know if there ever will be again."

"Aw, come on, Doctor."

"Knocking about on my own isn't so bad."

"Yeah? What have you been getting up to on your own?"

"I've been trying to chase down this _thing_ that can assimilate the form and biofunction of other species – sort of like the plasmavores, but its M.O. is several orders of magnitude worse."

"How is it worse?"

"Instead of blood, they take heads."

_"They cut off heads?"_

"More like _bite _them off."

"Okay, yeah. That is definitely worse than sucking blood through a straw."

"There have been a few mysterious decapitations in India - humans, of course. Police and pathology reports are dodgy, but one thing that's coming through loud and clear is that there are no signs of kerfing in the cuts, and, sadly, no sign of the heads anywhere. So I'm given to think it's… them."

"That's… really disgusting."

"Tell me about it. Not to mention, it's a fairly daunting and depressing endeavour. Knowing if I don't find their nest soon, someone else literally loses their head…"

"So, have they just snapped off the heads like a Praying Mantis and devoured them, in order to appear human?"

"Pretty much."

"Sounds rather too primitive a case for you."

"I'd be all too happy to report them, and let the Judoon deal with them. Except, I've studied them, and their energy signature is muddled… I've seen something like that before. It's an interval-oriented churning that means intermittent intake and release of energy."

"So, it needs feeding. What's feeding it? Oh… human heads?"

"No, I don't know what's feeding it, but I know it can't be heads, because they'd be _wicked_ conspicuous – like ten times more than they already are. I still think it's all interconnected somehow, but…" the Doctor trailed off and sighed heavily here. Then when he continued, he did so as if he'd never stopped. "And they're excellent at wielding that energy. Like in a really specific way – much better than I or the TARDIS."

"Which means what?"

"Dunno yet. Innit fabulous not knowing?"

"Actually, I find it quite frustrating," she corrected.

"Not knowing the facts about a case?"

"Yeah," she said, wistfully, now staring into the fish tank.

"Does that apply to Sylvie as well?" he asked, suspecting that though they had changed the topic of conversation, her thoughts had never really left the prospect of meeting a ghost from her fiancé's past.

"Not knowing more about her? Well, I mean, I don't know how much I'm _supposed _to know. A lot of the essence of a person can only be gleaned upon meeting. At the moment, all I really know is, she's Tom's ex. His most recent, most impactful ex, I think. I don't know her at all – just the stuff he's told me. They dated for a year and a half or so, while Tom was doing his residency in France. But I guess he broke it off because it got too intense."

"Is that _code _for something?"

"How should I know?" she said. "I've no real idea of what _too intense _means, but it's left its mark on him."

"So, what's she doing in London? Is she from here as well?"

"No, she's actually French. I guess she's in town for a conference," Martha said. "She's a CPN."

"What's that?"

"A Certified Paediatric Nurse."

And they chatted. They caught up. They became abreast of each other's lives, including a wedding date, a honeymoon destination, and an offer to drop off the newlyweds on the resort planet, Nephiling.

Martha had laughed. "No thanks, I think that might just freak him out a tad."

Eventually, the Doctor's eye was then caught by a man entering this part of the restaurant the same way Martha had. When the man saw Martha from the back in her red dress, he pointed at her, and spoke to someone unseen. On his lips the Doctor read the words, "Oh, there she is." The man started to approach their table.

Martha turned to see what the Doctor was looking at, and spied her fiancé walking forward toward them.

She also saw a woman walking with him. She was wearing a black lace dress with the shortest possible skirt, and the longest possible sleeves. She wore dramatic silver makeup on her face, her eyes were heavily lidded and sultry, and her mouth was almost as wide as her whole face. Her hair was flipped out sideways and coloured a bright shade of whitish-yellow at the ends, and black over the rest.

"Whoa, is that Sylvie?" the Doctor muttered.

"Must be," Martha said. "What the hell are they doing arriving together?"

"I don't know, but she's… she's…"

"What? Gorgeous?"

"No," the Doctor said. "Actually, I find her a bit terrifying."

"Terrifying? How?"

But by then, Tom and Sylvie had reached the table. Tom bent and kissed Martha and said, "Hi, sweetheart, sorry we're late."

* * *

**Yikes, an awkward dinner with the exes! Hopefully the waiter can keep the alcohol flowing!**

**Thanks for reading - drop me a line!**


	2. Chapter 2

**This chapter is longish, and soap-operaish, but hopefully you'll find it juicy, funny, exasperating, and cathartic!**

**So glad to see people are excited about this... hang on for Hurricane Sylvie!**

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TWO

The Doctor's eye had been caught by a man entering this part of the restaurant. A smartly-dressed man with a measure of both softness and intelligence in his eyes. He had recognised Martha and started to approach their table.

Martha turned to see what the Doctor was looking at, and spied her fiancé walking forward toward them.

She also saw a woman walking with him. She was dressed in a black lace dress with the shortest possible skirt, and the longest possible sleeves. She wore dramatic, silver makeup on her face, her eyes were heavily lidded and sultry, and her mouth was almost as wide as her whole face. Her hair was flipped out sideways and coloured a bright shade of whitish-yellow at the ends, and black over the rest.

"Whoa, is that Sylvie?" the Doctor muttered.

"Must be," Martha said. "What the hell are they doing arriving together?"

"I don't know, but she's… she's…"

"What? Gorgeous?"

"No," the Doctor said. "Actually, I find her a bit terrifying."

"Terrifying? How?"

But by then, Tom and Sylvie had reached the table. Tom bent and kissed Martha and said, "Hi, sweetheart, sorry we're late."

"It's okay," Martha said lightly. "Gave us a chance to catch up."

"Martha, this is Sylvie Caboche," Tom said gesturing to the heavily-coiffed woman standing next to him. "Sylvie, my fiancée, Martha Jones."

Martha stood up, as did the Doctor, and the two women shook hands.

"_Enchantée,_ I'm sure," Sylvie said.

"Likewise," Martha said.

And then Tom looked at the Doctor and smiled affably. "And might you be John?"

"I might," the Doctor answered, and the men, in turn, shook hands.

All four of them sat down at once – Tom beside Martha, and Sylvie beside the Doctor – and as they did, the server appeared with Martha's wine. Tom then ordered the same.

"I would like the Ouzo, please," said Sylvie to the server, and it was impossible not to notice her accent. As she spoke, the Doctor thought her English was as ornate and heavily-hampered as her appearance.

"So, since you're probably both wondering," Tom said to Martha and the Doctor, placing his hand on the small of her back… rather territorially, the Doctor thought. "We're late because Sylvie had a flat tyre, and phoned me to come find her out on the M4."

"Oh! A flat tyre on the M4? That sounds… dramatic," Martha commented.

Sylvie nodded. "Thankfully Tom come to my rescue. He's definitely still my hero."

Martha looked Tom over. He was wearing a navy-blue suit with a cornflower blue dress shirt, and no tie. He looked crisp and clean.

"You changed a tyre wearing that?" she asked Tom.

"No," Sylvie said. "He simply invited me into his car, and whisked me away to here. So, Martha. Tom tells me you are an internist, working for the government."

"Yes, that's true, though it's better described as an investigative branch of the military," she answered.

"I started out doing nursing for internal medicines, but changed to paediatrics," Sylvie told her. "It was like a calling. Like I _had _to work with children, and I just couldn't stay away from them any longer! Tom experienced the same calling, didn't you Tom?"

He chuckled, taken off-guard. "I suppose I did, yes."

"I just love children," Sylvie declared. "I always wanted a big family, didn't I?"

"You did," Tom agreed, a bit uncomfortably.

"Tom knows, I adore the idea of lots and lots of children running about the house." At this, Sylvie gave a big, bright smile that, to the Doctor, seemed wholly artificial. She then turned toward the Doctor, though she fidgeted with her hair rather than look him in the eye. "And John, what do you do?"

He turned at looked at her, for the first time, up-close. He was struck by her. And not in a good way.

"I'm… well, also an internist. But these days, I sort of hospital-hop for the NHS, doing administrative consulting."

"Do you not find that limiting?" she asked.

"Limiting?"

"I mean, how on Earth do you find satisfaction in _not_ working hands-on with people who need you?"

The Doctor allowed himself a mental eyeroll. They had been sitting here for just a few minutes together, and already rather disliked Sylvie. She was monopolising the conversation thus far, and she was quite clearly digging in to undermine everyone at the table, and very subtly taking shots at Martha and Tom's relationship.

It was clever, and betrayed a much better command of English than her accent suggested. _Tom tells me…_ she had said. She'd called Tom _definitely still her hero_ because he'd_ rescued her _and _invited her into his car_ and _whisked_ her away. She'd suggested that she and Tom shared the same "calling," to care for children, wanting a big family, suggesting plans made by kindred spirits and myriad other things…

So, in response to her very insulting question, he frowned, feigning thought and consideration.

Then he said, "I find my work immensely satisfying, Sylvie. As a consultant, I can help overworked hospital personnel, such as yourself, find their niche, as you've found yours. I help them get fairer pay, and I help them secure much-needed holiday time with their families so that all patients can be served by well-rested, satisfied doctors and nurses, who have got their head in the game."

"I see," Sylvie said, miraculously stymied, for the first time since she began dominating the conversation.

The Doctor shrugged. "I don't need to be _in _the trenches, I'll just help keep the trenches safe and pleasant to work in, how's that?"

"Amen," Tom said, with a smile. "Can't argue with that!"

Martha smiled also. The Doctor knew her well, and her smile was one of admiration and appreciation. He winked at her, and turned toward Sylvie again, almost as if to ask, "What else have you got for me?" He felt inclined to engage her, even though she rubbed him _completely _the wrong way.

She turned directly toward him, as well. For the first time, Sylvie deigned to look him in the eyes.

When she did, there was a very subtle widening of the eyes, and her body pulled back from him slightly. It was not a suggestive gesture. She did not look him over, nor smile, nor soften her gaze, suggesting interest. He'd seen enough of both flirtation and fear to know the difference.

_Well, at least I've got her on the back foot,_ he thought. _No idea why, though._

"What brings you to London?" he asked her. "I mean, besides Tom."

"Oh, erm… I'm on holiday," she said. "A girls' week-end."

"I thought you said it was a CPN conference," Tom said.

"Hush, you. I didn't say that," Sylvie told him.

"I'm pretty sure you did, and don't tell me to hush," he retorted.

The Doctor and Martha, glanced at each other in recognition of what they were seeing. The first bit of real tangling, and they hadn't even been seated for ten minutes. Perhaps this was normal ex stuff; but perhaps it wasn't.

"Well, _tant mieux. _Whatever I said before," Sylvie said, with a taut voice, trying to sound whimsical. "I'm on holiday now with two of my friends. They are both CPNs, Tom, maybe that's why you thought I meant I was coming for a conference."

"That's not why," Tom told her. "But let's not dwell on that. Shall we check out the menu?"

The four of them each picked up their menu, with a bit of relief at being able to concentrate on something else for a bit.

But their relief was short-lived.

"The scallop risotto looks good," said Martha.

"Oh, Tom is allergic to scallops," Sylvie told her, with a quelling, condescending hand gesture.

Martha didn't even look up from her menu. "I know. That's why it's a good thing Tom is old enough to order for himself."

Sylvie then reached across the table and took Tom's hand. "Oh that reminds me, remember Tom, the first time we had dinner at the Ivy, here in London?"

Tom sighed, disengaging his hand from hers. "I remember."

Sylvie turned to address Martha and the Doctor. "He was so adorable – he ordered for me, like a perfect, old-fashioned gentleman. Trying so hard to impress."

"I ordered for you because you didn't speak English then," Tom said, clearly annoyed, also not looking up from his menu.

"_Très bien, mon amour," _Sylvie sang. _"Mais je l'ai appris plus tard, n'est-ce pas ? On a tous les deux appris la langue de l'un et l'autre. Surtout la langue physique."_

"_J'suis plus ton amour, et tu m'as promis que tu t'arrêterais," _Tom said to her, eyes still glued to the menu.

"_M'arrêter de faire quoi ? Faire une conversation polie ?" _Sylvie's voice started out innocent, but then went low, and a bit sultry. _"C'est pas comme si je m'approche à risquer de révéler à ta fiancée guindée ce que tu as fait."_

Tom tore the menu away from his face now. With his teeth gritted, he growled, _"T'es putain de casse-couilles depuis le moment où tu as ouvert la portière de ma voiture._ _Je te connais, et je sais ce que tu essaies de faire, mais j'en suis fini. __Alors, tiens-toi bien ou fous le camp."_

Unfortunately, the waiter had chosen that moment to deliver Tom and Sylvie's drinks. He put two glasses on the table, and backed up. "I'll give you nice people another few minutes."

Martha's eyes were as wide as saucers, as she looked back and forth between her fiancé and his problematic ex.

For a few moments, there was an intense silence hanging in the air, as they all held their breaths, wondering what might happen next.

The Doctor knew that Martha was fluent in German and Spanish, and could "get by" in basic Mandarin, but would have no idea what Tom and Sylvie had been saying in French – and Tom would know it too. Their conversation had revealed something _definitely_ not right about Tom and Sylvie, and the Doctor determined that Martha needed to know, before Sylvie tried to manipulate things any further.

"Oh, Martha, I almost forgot. I have a photo of little Maisie to show you!" he said, cheerily reaching into his pocket. "You wouldn't believe how big she is now!"

"Oh… erm…" Martha asked, having no idea what he was talking about.

To Tom, he said, "Maisie is my sister's little girl. Last Martha saw her, she was six weeks old. Sorry, I can't help but want to show her off – proud uncle and all!"

The Doctor handed Martha a little leather wallet which she recognised held within it the psychic paper. When she opened it, the card inside read, _"Sylvie made an innuendo. Tom said that she'd promised she'd stop it. She basically threatened to tell you what he's done. That's when his voice got harsh, and he said she'd been a bloody pain in the arse since she opened his car-door, he knows what she's trying to do, but he's done, so she should either behave herself or fuck off. Martha, I don't know what's gone on between these two, but if I were you, I would want to find out."_

A fluttering, sickening brick went _thud_ in the pit of Martha's stomach. She could see that Sylvie was trying to do a bit more than walk down memory lane with Tom, but it had been difficult to put her finger on why she felt the shiny Frenchwoman was trying to undermine her somehow. Now she had proof of at least _something_ untoward going on in Sylvie's mind… and what the hell had she done in the car? More to the point, what dirt did she have on Tom?

Tom leaned over and looked over her shoulder at the psychic paper, and said, "Oh my goodness, she's adorable! How old?"

Martha looked at him with unfiltered amazement for a short moment, before she caught herself. The psychic paper must have been showing him the image of a small child.

"She's three," the Doctor said. "Already a little drama queen."

"I'll bet she's full of mischief," Martha said to the Doctor.

"She absolutely is," the Doctor said, with a flit of his eyebrow.

"May I see?" asked Sylvie.

Martha handed the small folder to her, and she cooed, "_Ah, quel trésor!_ I just love little children!"

"Yes, Sylvie, I believe you already mentioned that," the Doctor said.

Tom laughed. "You'll definitely need to keep an eye on that one!"

Sylvie handed the wallet back to him, and as she did so, the Doctor caught her eye and answered Tom, "Yes, we most definitely _will_ keep an eye on her."

Once again, in her eyes, he read something like fear, or unease, or even revulsion.

She quickly looked away, and he pocketed the wallet.

The waiter came back just then, almost as if he had been watching them to see when the tension would die down, so he could jump on them before it mounted again. Tom ordered the Greek tomato bisque, Martha the mini gyros with tilapia. The Doctor, in fact, quite fancied the scallop risotto, and Sylvie very pointedly ordered raw oysters and a small Greek salad.

Martha sighed inwardly. It was going to be a long evening.

She decided to cut to the quick. Tom had wanted them all together for some reason, and Sylvie had made it clear that she wanted things ugly. So they might as well get to it so they could skip the coffee and dessert and put this evening out of its misery just after the main course.

She put her hand on Tom's. "Sweetheart, was there something specific you wanted to talk about? Something you might want to tell me? Or us?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well, you're the one who… let's say, called this meeting," she said. "You said it would be a good opportunity to hash some things out before we, you know… take the plunge."

"I did say that."

"Yes, and it makes me wonder if you had something in particular that you wanted to tell me, or something you needed to ask John, or… I don't know. This is kind of your show."

He cleared his throat and sat up straight, looking back and forth between the Doctor and Sylvie. "Right, well… I suppose I didn't really have anything specific in mind. I just thought Martha should meet Sylvie, and I should meet John. You both have such indelible imprints upon us, I reckoned it might be purging for us as a couple, to have you both here."

"Like walking through fire," the Doctor muttered. "If you can survive that…"

"We can survive anything," Tom responded. "Exactly."

"Personally, I've never survived walking through fire," the Doctor said.

Tom either didn't register the comment, or was choosing to ignore him. "And, I thought, _things to talk about _would arise on their own. Thank you, Sylvie, for getting the ball rolling." Tom clasped his hands together and stared at the table in front of him, taking a deep breath. "Clearly there are things between me and Sylvie that went unresolved. Our relationship ended in a hail of… well, tears and screaming, and I won't lie: it haunts me. We have never really talked about it since then. I have never apologised for some of the things that I said, and you have never fully explained yourself."

"Explained myself? Explained myself for being myself? That's a lot to ask, Tom," said Sylvie.

"But that's just it, I don't feel that you _were _being yourself. I felt at that time that things had changed dramatically, and quite quickly, and I was never sure why."

Sylvie shrugged smugly. "People change, Tom."

He looked at her sideways, with suspicion. "Yes, but after all that time? After all the… everything? With what we'd been through together, _that _sort of change? Come on, Sylvie. There had to be something behind it."

The Doctor and Martha exchanged another quick look. They both could see that in spite of this little attempt at purging their issues, there was something that Tom was avoiding saying.

"_Il n'y avait rien._ There was nothing," Sylvie declared. "I am a free spirit. That is the only explanation I have."

Martha studied her fiancé, who was now boring holes into Sylvie's forehead with his eyes. She had absolutely no idea what this cryptic conversation was about, and wondered if it was what was at the crux of all of Tom's "Sylvie Issues." If that was the case, it looked very possible that he would never get an answer, and if he couldn't let go, that was definitely going to be a problem.

She sighed, and sat back in her chair, realising suddenly that both of the men sitting at this table were men she had loved, and even though she had never been in a proper relationship with the Doctor, she'd sat in the same goddamn boat with both of them.

They were very different men, and she had acknowledged long ago within herself that her love for Tom was nowhere near as incendiary, nor as ultimately painful, as what she'd harboured for the Doctor. But what they had in common was the ghosts from their pasts. The Doctor had Rose, Tom had Sylvie. Clearly, post-Sylvie Tom had been much more ready to move on than the post-Rose Doctor, but she wondered in these moments if she'd ever be able to fall for someone who didn't have a frustrating hang-up on his ex.

And then she stopped herself.

_Am I seriously wondering if I'll ever be able to fall for someone else?_

_I guess I am. I'm not sure what to do with that just yet…_

As soon as Sylvie had arrived in the restaurant and started talking, Martha realised, she had begun subtly, subconsciously, letting go of Tom. She had known somewhere within the recesses of her mind, in those first few moments, what Sylvie was going to try to do, and could predict the effect it would have on Tom. At present, she really, really wondered if it would turn out to be something she could live with.

She took advantage of the silence. And her growing anger over being made to play second-fiddle to some woman who seemed ungodly difficult to forget. Twice.

"Well, as long as we're going down this road," Martha said, sitting up straight and looking directly at the Doctor. "_John_, I have a question or two of my own."

"Okay, see? This is good," said Tom, again, placing his hand territorially on the small of her back.

The Doctor seemed completely blindsided, but said, "Okay."

She hadn't _really_ planned on "hashing things out" with "John" during this dinner, but as long as Sylvie and Tom were going to make things difficult, and she found herself at a crossroads again...

_Why not? When am I ever going to get this chance again?_

She took a long pull off her wine, and then took a leap.

"Clearly, after you lost Rose, you weren't ready to take on a new… relationship. So why the hell did you?"

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "That is a question I've asked myself at least a hundred times, every day since you left me. No lie." This last bit, he said quite pointedly, seriously, so that she would know that he was now not speaking in the guise of her fake ex-boyfriend John, but as himself.

"And how do you answer yourself?"

"I just keep going back to that first day at Royal Hope," he said. "And realising that I was, in the end, just dazzled by you. Again, no lie."

"Really?"

"Of course. Have you met you?"

She chuckled.

He continued, "We had a hospital-wide crisis on our hands, and you were the coolest customer in the building. Not to mention, you had these deep, dark eyes that made my knees weak."

"Oh my God," she whispered. "Are you…"

"Serious? Yes. Absolutely," he told her. Then his tone changed slightly. "But to be fair, Martha, I did warn you that I was on the rebound."

"Yes, I suppose you did."

"And you chose to move forward with me."

"Yes, I suppose I did."

"Why did you do that?"

She chuckled. "Really? You don't know?"

"Maybe I do," he sighed, leaning back in his chair again.

"I was a bit dazzled myself, I think," she confessed. "You saw to that."

She remembered resisting him in the alley after Leo's twenty-first birthday disaster, but being wooed into coming aboard the TARDIS. She now realised, he had played completely unfairly.

"Yeah," he admitted reluctantly.

"I guess, I fell prey to the folly of many women: I thought I could change you," Martha mused. "Or, at least, I thought I could make you move on from her."

"Honestly? I thought you could too," he said. "But make no mistake: my inability to move on from her, that was _never about you._ It was never because you were not enough. It was because _I_ was not enough."

Martha frowned. "Doctor, that's crazy."

She realised then that she had slipped, and forgotten to call him _John_, but she didn't much care just now.

"It's not crazy. I lost Rose in a moment of personal weakness, and I spent _years _punishing myself for the things I never did, never said… I began to realise that I couldn't risk anything like that happening again. It's daft, I know. But it's the daft, raw, irrational fear of a man who is just not ready. If you'd given me enough time, I reckon I could've got ready. But I realise that _you_, Dr. Jones, don't have _that _kind of time."

"So you shut me out?"

"Not consciously. But I also know that I didn't make any conscious effort to remain open to you, or reassure you, and for that, what can I say? I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

She smiled sheepishly. "You always say that."

He smiled back at her. "It's always true."

"You see?" Tom interjected. "This is fantastic."

The Doctor took a deep breath, suddenly wishing he'd ordered alcohol like everyone else. "Yeah, it's a bloody picnic."

"I'm sorry John, but this is why we asked you here. This is precisely the sort of thing that Martha and I need, and I would like to _thank you _so very much for giving us this," Tom said.

"You're welcome," the Doctor said, sincerely.

"Yes," Martha said, looking at him quite meaningfully. "_Thank you."_

Tom turned to Sylvie. "Would it kill you to do what he did? Give me a few answers?"

"No," said Sylvie. "But I don't _have _the answers that you're searching for, _chéri._ If anything, I think it is I who should be asking _why._"

"Okay. How's that?" Tom wondered, incredulous.

"Why, when the _change_ occurred, would you not _change_ with me?"

"It doesn't matter why, anymore," Tom told her. "The important thing is, if the tables were turned, and it was me wanting to _change_, and trying to force you to do it too… it would be a _much _different story. If I had done what you did, I'd be in prison! But you… you haven't ever even apologised. You've never even acknowledged that what you tried to do was wrong!"

"Jesus, what the hell happened with you two?" Martha asked.

Sylvie ignored her. "All right, so, I'm confused, you're confused. Can't we just say it's down to a difference of opinion, and leave it?"

Tom sighed. "We could, except, in spite of myself, I loved you. I am, as you know, a sensitive person. And to feel, for lack of a better word, _violated_ by someone I loved… it could have destroyed me."

Sylvie pointed out, "But it didn't. You've been able to get back on the horse?" Then she looked at Martha and nodded toward her. "With her, I mean."

"It's not about getting back on the horse, Sylvie. It's about what's happening inside me."

Sylvie's voice dropped low again, and she practically whispered, "What happens inside you is no longer my responsibility. Just as you've made clear that what happens inside me is no longer yours."

Again, there was a thick silence. All four of them stared at the table in front of them, not saying a word. Their dinner had still not arrived – they had another hour or so, either to sit and eat in terse silence, or continue to try to navigate conversation, which, thanks to Sylvie, seemed only to make things more tense.

The Doctor racked his brain, for a clever way to diffuse the situation.

Ultimately, clever failed him, so he went for practical.

"Okay, should we just take a step back for now, and try to talk about something else?" he asked.

"Yes, let's," Tom agreed.

"Tell me about your stint in Africa," the Doctor said.

"Oh... er, yeah, it was amazing," Tom told him. "I mean… rough as hell working out of a tent, trying to treat patients in the middle of a jungle. Just keeping everything sterile is a nightmare, but it's so soul-satisfying, you know? Have you ever done anything like that?"

"Getting outside my backyard, and trying to do some good? Yeah, I've done that, a time or two. You worked with Doctors Without Borders, yeah?"

Tom nodded. "It's a wonderful organisation – I'm trying to get Martha on-board for the next tour I'm planning on doing in 2010. This first time out was in the DRC, but there's no telling where we'll be needed next. The Middle-East, Southeast Asia..."

The Doctor looked at Martha. "Not interested?"

She said, "It's not that I'm not interested. It's just that I find I'm a bit of a home-body these days, you know?"

The Doctor smiled. "I get that."

"Oh, Martha, you should reconsider," Sylvie said. "It's a wonderful experience! In fact, I'm thinking of going back out in 2010 as well. So rewarding."

To the Doctor, it felt like the first non-poisonous thing Sylvie had said. Except that Martha latched onto it in a different way.

"You've done it?" Martha asked.

"Yes," Sylvie answered. "They were in need of French-speaking paediatric nurses. Have you heard of the Invisible Children? Such a sad story, that. And though the conflict is mainly in Uganda at the moment, it is starting to spread into the DRC, and there are thousands of children affected already. I decided to go – I've got no obligations left in France – why not?"

Martha blinked at her a few times, then said, "You were in the DRC as well?"

"Erm, yeah," Tom said, then he chuckled nervously.

Martha glared at him with absolute daggers in her eyes. "In the same camp?"

"Did I never mention that?" he asked.

_Oh, Tom,_ the Doctor groaned inwardly. _Bad, bad, BAD thing to say._

"You know bloody well you never mentioned that," Martha said remarkably calmly. But the Doctor knew her voice when things were about to blow, and this was it.

"Martha, listen…" Tom tried.

Martha's voice continued in its quiet, trembling hiss. "We are here, in this restaurant, supposedly to hash out hang-ups that you have with your ex because for some reason, which I'm still not clear on, you are not over her, or what she did to you. You say that she was the love of your life before you met me, and she's left an 'indelible' print on you."

"Martha…"

"It's hard enough to accept that kind of baggage, as you know, Tom. But now I find out that _during our relationship_, you spent _four months_ in a remote outpost in the jungle, and she was there the whole time, and you never said a thing about it?"

Tom sighed. "Yes."

Martha removed the napkin from her lap and placed it on the table. She stood up. "I've suddenly lost my appetite. Please enjoy your dinners. John, thank you for coming, and for acting like, ironically, the only sane human being at the table. I won't forget it. Maybe we can have coffee soon. Good night."

She pushed her chair out, picked up her handbag, and walked away from the table, toward the exit.

"Martha, please don't do this! We can talk this out!" Tom called to her, until realising he would have to get up and go after her, which he did, but not before pointing a finger right at Sylvie, and practically spitting, "I really _fucking_ hate you, you know that?"

Sylvie smiled at him in a way that left no doubt whether or not she had _innocently_ told Martha she'd been in the DRC with Tom.

After another few moments of terrible silence, the Doctor asked Sylvie, "Okay… well, can I help you get back to the M4? I'll change your tyre, if you'd like."

Obviously, he found her more disgusting than ever now, but he was keen to find out more about her. For some reason, she seemed to feel threatened by him, and he had no idea why. In his experience in knocking about the universe as a Time Lord, that didn't often mean good things.

She stood up from the table and looked at him directly, for only the third time since the whole thing had begun.

This time, her breath hitched a bit, along with the same fear he'd seen before, flashing across her eyes.

"No," she said. "_Non, merci._ I will call a taxi."

"Or one of your mates?"

"_Pardon_?"

"You said you're in London on a girls' week-end."

"Oh. Yes, right. Maybe one of them can come collect me. Nice meeting you. Goodbye."

Stiffly, she walked away from the Doctor, and out of the restaurant, and once again, he was alone at the table, with his left shoulder pressed to the fish tank.

The waiter appeared then, though not yet with the food.

"Sir?" he asked, looking at the three empty chairs.

"Bit of a tense dinner," the Doctor said. "I'm the last one standing. You can cancel the orders, and bring me the bill. Sorry for the inconvenience."

* * *

**Wow. Sylvie. Almost a caricature of a terrible ex, eh?**

**Let me know what you think... thank you for reading!**


	3. Chapter 3

**The Sylvie saga continues!**

**When we last saw her, she had spilled the beans about having been in Africa, working with Tom, knowing Tom had never told Martha about it. Our favorite Companion left the restaurant, with her clumsy fiancé chasing after her, leaving a Time Lord and a troublesome woman sitting at the table.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

THREE

Martha Jones was not a woman who did things for the sake of drama. She had no desire to be watched as she left the restaurant (even though she knew it would happen), nor did she want to be followed… by anyone. Not Tom, not the Doctor, and certainly not Sylvie. Her first objective in walking off in a huff was to get the hell away from her probably soon-to-be-ex fiancé, and his nightmare of an ex-girlfriend, as soon as possible.

And so, when she heard her name being called, she sped up her steps, hoping to make it to the Tube station and through the turnstile before Tom could catch her. She knew he didn't have an Oyster card, and would have no choice but to let her go.

But she also knew it was a longshot, since she was wearing heels, and Tom's legs were much, much longer than hers. And, surely enough, she felt his hand close around her arm, just as she put one foot on the first step down into the Underground.

"Martha, please don't go."

She didn't turn to face him as he expected her to. She just stood there, still in a stance that suggested she was headed downstairs. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't. And don't you dare tell me you're sorry."

"This was the opposite of what I wanted from tonight," he sighed. "I was hoping this would bring us closer."

"While still hoping you could keep the truth from me."

He let his hand drop to his side. "Yeah. I have no excuses. I'm a piece of shit."

She turned and now looked at him, though did not fully leave the stairs to the Underground. "Why didn't you tell me? During one of a billion phone calls, you could have said, _Martha, I've got something I need to tell you… you're not going to like it, but I know that honesty goes a long way…"_

"I know, I know."

"It does, Tom, don't you know that? _Honesty_. Even if you knew I wouldn't like it, wouldn't you have known that it would be ten times as bad if you didn't tell me, and then I somehow found out?"

"I would know that."

"Besides, I mean… I know you and Sylvie have some weird stuff in your past, and somehow, the two of you are, like, forever entwined. But if all you were doing was working alongside her, then, there was nothing to worry about. But I still deserved to know."

"Yeah."

"Remember when John helped us with that air-pollution thing at UNIT? I told you about it, because I thought that someday, it might come out, and I thought it would piss you off if too much time passed before I told you. I mean, Tom, that happened while you were _in the DRC with Sylvie,_ and I told you about it over the phone while you were in that camp! It _never_ occurred to you to let me know, even then?"

He put his hands in his pockets, and sighed, shaking his head sadly. "It didn't. I don't know why."

There was a long silence, during which a lightbulb came on in Martha's head. "I know why," she said. There was sadness, and also revelation in her voice.

"You do."

"I do," she said. "I just said that if all you were doing was working alongside her, there was nothing to worry about. But you weren't just _working_ alongside her, were you?"

"Martha, listen…"

"An innocent man would rush to deny it."

"Martha, if I could..."

"Oh my God, you're disgusting," she hissed, and turned to walk down the stairs.

"No, Martha, listen," he begged, following her down. He grabbed her arm again.

"Let go of me," she demanded wrenching away from him.

"Will you just listen?" he shouted, as she reached the bottom of the stairs, leaving him standing on a middle step. People passing by were being very British, and trying not to look.

"Why? So you can make excuses?"

"No, I told you, I have no excuses. I'm a piece of shit."

"I'm inclined to agree," she said, turning on her heel and walking through the archway. The turnstile was ten yards ahead.

He followed her still, and took advantage of the fact that she had to stop for a second to dig in her handbag for her Oyster card.

"Please listen to me. I meant what I said before – if we're going to get married, we're going to need to have all the info. I now know the value of full disclosure. I will tell you anything you want to know, and even some stuff you don't. Please."

She looked up from her purse to gaze at him incredulously. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"No. Why?"

"You think we're getting married now?" she asked. She walked away from him, chuckling bitterly.

"No... no, don't do this to me," he demanded, following her. "We can work it out, I know we can."

"Really? You know we can? Then you're a right moron," she shot back, nearly coming to the turnstile.

"You love me, Iknow you do. And I love you! It's too much just to give up because of some dumb mistakes!" he insisted. "I'm not going to give up until you stand still and hear me out."

"You don't have a choice," she announced, stopping just before the turnstile, and facing him.

"Martha... I do love you. You must feel it!"

"I feel nothing right now," she told him, realising it herself, only just then. She turned and walked through the turnstile, leaving him behind, without looking back.

"Okay, but don't you want to know _why?"_ he yelled across the row of turnstiles. "Don't you want reassurance? Don't you want to know that it had nothing to do with you, or anything you did? Don't you want to know what in God's name I was thinking? Aren't there a million questions you're going to ask yourself about this, in the months to come? Don't you want some of those answers now?"

"Goodbye Tom," she called back at him.

"Fine, have it your way," he said, shouting at her now through a set of metal bars as she continued to walk away. "I woke up in the middle of the night in the jungle with my cock in her mouth, and that's how the chapter begins."

Now forgetting their Britishness in the face of such blatantly juicy chaos, quite a few people turned and looked, and/or snickered at what they had heard. Martha stopped in her tracks, turned, and gave him a glower that made his blood run cold.

She was still too far away to hear him if he spoke with a normal voice, so he continued to yell. "I had shot her down three or four times before that, said that I was engaged to someone else, that I wasn't going to betray that trust. But she wouldn't listen, and finally, she got tired of asking nicely, and sabotaged me while I was asleep. By the time I realised what was happening, I was too far gone to stop it. So, I… _finished. _And the bitch knew she had me."

People had stopped to stare, to listen to the vulgar, private story that some man was now shouting at some woman in the Tube station.

"Shall I go on?" Tom shouted.

"God, no!" Martha shouted back.

She quickly weighed her options. The train platform was right here, just a few steps away, and she _could _just try to ignore him while she waited for it. But, Tom was down the rabbit hole now, and would continue to shout his x-rated story very loudly until the train arrived.

The only _practical_ solution was to go back.

And so, she began to walk back toward him. People around them audibly groaned in disappointment.

She went back through the exit door, and said, "You're not playing fair."

"Neither are you."

"I don't have to."

"Then it's a good thing I'm such a piece of shit, otherwise I wouldn't stand a chance," he said. "Will you just come home with me?"

"I will go as far as your car. And that's only as long as you promise not to divulge any other details where people can hear you."

"Fine," he said, and the two of them walked back up the stairs.

It was a two-block walk to where Tom had parked his car. She climbed into the passenger seat, and when Tom pulled his keys from his pocket, she grabbed them and said, "No, I'm not going anywhere with you. Talk here."

He sighed. "Okay, fair enough."

"Is anything that you said true? The thing you shouted in the Tube station?"

"Yep. At this point, why would I be making stuff up?"

"Was that the only time? In the DRC, with her... waking up with... what you shouted about?"

He sighed again. "No, it wasn't the only time."

"So, when you said, the bitch knew she had you, you meant…"

"She knew I was trying to be faithful to you, and she knew she'd just tricked me into ruining it, and that once it was ruined…"

"…there would be no point in continuing to try."

"Right. I'd blown it. Or rather, she had. She'd… never mind. The point is, once you've put a thimbleful of red in a bucket of white paint, the only thing you will ever have is pink. The bucket will never be white again."

"An excellent way of justifying yourself, Dr. Milligan. Bravo."

"I know. As I said, I'm a…"

"So are you going to tell me that _she _initiated every encounter in the DRC?"

"The vast, vast majority of them, but… technically, not all."

"Ugh," Martha groaned, slapping her forehead. "Why did I ask?"

"Sorry."

"_Do not _say that word."

"Okay," he said, tightly, struggling not to say "sorry" again.

For a while, there was silence again, and then Martha said, "You know, Tom, this is a lot to take in. It occurred to me at dinner that you had only told me the tip-of-the-iceberg about Sylvie but now I'm thinking I only knew about one snowflake on a whole goddamn mountain."

"I'll admit, there's a lot you don't know."

"There's a lot about John that _you_ don't know, but trust me, it's not because I've done anything I'm ashamed of."

"I believe you."

A long silence, during which yet another lightbulb went on in Martha's brain.

"D'you know what?" she asked. "Tom, I'm starting now to wonder if you really called this meeting with the two of them in order to _strengthen_ our relationship."

"How do you mean? Of course I did. Why the hell else would I risk putting us through that?"

"What if, on a subconscious level, you put this whole thing together to damage us irreparably? You're scared, so you do something drastic."

"What? Are you mental? That's ridiculous!"

"No, it's not! I mean, come on, you know what she's like," Martha said. "You knew she'd try to lay the whammy on you from moment one. And you knew that it would vex me. You knew I'd start mentally letting go of my life with you, as soon as she opened her mouth."

"Wait, what? You started… _mentally letting go _of me? The moment you met her?"

"Not consciously, but yeah. She started doing her thing, and some part of me knew I would never have a chance."

"That's not true, Martha."

"Tom, did you _honestly _think that this dinner would go _well_, knowing what you know of her? She's a selfish, manipulative succubus, who is absolutely ravenous for you. There's no way you _didn't _know what she would do."

"She promised to behave herself," he said. "And I was enough of an idiot to believe her."

"She promised not to tell me what you did in the jungle, you mean."

"Yeah, that, but also, she promised not to make innuendos or do… that thing she does. But then…"

"Then, what?"

Pressing his hand to his forehead, looking harried, he said, "Ugh, she called me before dinner to tell me she'd had a flat on the M4, and… I had a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach."

Martha turned in her seat to face him directly. "You shagged her in this car, didn't you? Tonight, on the way to dinner!"

"No!" he shouted. "No! I swear."

"But she tried to get you to?"

"She grabbed my crotch multiple times, and tried to stick her tongue in my ear. I nearly drove off the road and killed us both."

"And you still brought her to dinner? What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I thought it would make it worse if I didn't!"

"Worse how?"

"Like you'd get suspicious or something, I don't know!"

"Well, _that _worked out well, didn't it?" she shouted. "So this was what you meant when you said she'd been in a pain in the arse since she opened your car door."

"You understood that?" he asked, referring to a rapidfire, angry exchange he'd had with Sylvie in French, while they were having drinks.

"No. John did."

"Shit," he sighed. "And what, texted you to rat me out after you left?"

"No, no, don't bring him into this," she deflected, rather than discuss the psychic paper. Then she said, "Tom, this whole evening was a _spectacular _disaster, especially from your point of view. You took a huge risk putting her in the same room with me… and you lost. You knew that might happen, so, if you weren't subconsciously trying to fuck up our relationship, then how do you explain any of it? How in the world did all of this come about? How did you decide we needed to do this dinner? How did you even know she was in town?"

"She always tells me when she's in town," he muttered.

"Always? Jesus, how often is she here?"

"Every couple of weeks."

"What?" Martha shrieked.

"I always tell her I can't see her, Martha," he told her, now sounding exhausted.

"Why don't you tell her to quit bloody calling you?"

"I do! Every time! Do you think she listens?"

"So stop answering her calls!"

"I've tried! She calls every goddamn minute and harasses my office staff until I call her back! Do you think I'd be doing any of this shit, if she could be handled like a rational person? Do you think she gives a tiny rat's arse what I think or want? What anyone on Earth thinks or wants, other than herself? No! That's how she is! She's a fucking nightmare!"

"They let this person work with children?"

He sighed, and took a pause. "Actually, to be fair, she's great with kids, and she's a highly skilled nurse," Tom said. "But in her personal life, she's… well…"

"But you loved her once?"

"I did," he admitted. "She's beautiful and passionate and exciting. She's intelligent. She's good at her job. She's devoted… to a fault. She _can _be very giving and kind. And there was a time when I thought her relentlessness was a positive quality."

Martha conceded, "I guess I could see that."

"We were together a long time, even longer than our official relationship lasted – before _and _after, as you now know. She's all of those things I mentioned – everything you might want in a mate, including a firecracker in the sack – sorry."

"It's all right. I've gathered as much," Martha said flatly.

"I've said before: she's under my skin. Our relationship was intense, and we were both in it with our whole bodies and souls, at one time. Everything about her echoes inside of me – you've said the same about John."

"Yes, I have."

"And no matter how problematic she is, no matter how much time passes, that will probably always be true." He was silent for a long moment, contemplatively staring down the street. He sighed big, and added, "Only at the end of our relationship did I realise what she really was, and how it was a mistake to get involved with her in the first place."

"How _did _you get involved with her in the first place?"

"I've never told you?"

"No."

"I went to Paris on holiday over Christmas with some mates, my last year at uni, and I met her in a club. After we danced for a bit, she took me into the loo and we…"

"Okay, I get it," she said, tersely.

"Well, we left the club, and went back to her flat. I ditched my friends and spent the weekend with her. Minimal food, minimal conversation, just a two-day shag. And then it was over, and we said, 'hey it was fun, no harm done!' Fond memories and all that. I thought I'd seen the last of her, and came back to London to get on with my life."

"Then what?"

"Then what? You want me to go on, so does this mean you'll consider taking me back?"

"I haven't even come to terms with what it means breaking up with you yet," she snapped. "One thing at a time. Now, just tell your story, will you?"

* * *

The TARDIS was parked about a quarter-mile from the restaurant, and after settling up with the restaurant, the Doctor walked slowly back, and let himself inside.

At the moment, he didn't have anywhere to be, anywhere in particular to go, but he did have some work to do. So, he decided just to hang about and get some things done, while idling here in his favourite city.

He reckoned that in a few days, he'd phone Martha to see how she was doing; he would take her up on her offer to have coffee, if she wished. If nothing else, she might want to talk unabashedly about Sylvie, with someone who could understand what she was like.

The TARDIS had bookmarked for him some data concerning the alien he had described to Martha, the one that assimilates the form and biology of a species by taking their heads. He did not yet know which species it was, nor where they came from, nor why they would do it. Although, he had seen their gruesome trail of terror centuries ago on a different planet, but said trail had gone cold before he could run them down.

He was now somewhat ashamed of the fact that he had not pursued them further nevertheless, and of the fact that he was so much more motivated to identify and stop them, now they were going after humans. How many had lost their heads across the universe because the Doctor had given up on them, back in the day?

Well, no sense dwelling on it; he was going to find them this time, and make amends with himself.

When he'd shut the door to the TARDIS earlier in the evening and had gone to dinner, he had been hoping that some time away would help him see something he was missing. He'd thought that perhaps by taking his mind off of actively thinking about it, something new might fight its way to the surface of his unencumbered consciousness.

And now, he stared at the data he'd collected… but nothing spectacular was happening.

Because he was distracted by the evening's events.

The memory of Martha appearing in the restaurant, wearing that strawberry-red dress, turning heads everywhere as she walked straight for him… it came to him unbidden, and struck across his line of vision now, just as it had in the moment. His throat had fallen into his stomach momentarily when he'd seen her, and he recalled a vague thought wafting through his brain, "Tom Milligan must be one hell of an outstanding guy." To have won the affections – the hand – of this creature… he'd _have _to be impressive, wouldn't he?

But actually, the Doctor hadn't been that impressed. Though, to be fair, things had started to go south pretty quickly. Tom was nice enough, he supposed, probably clever, and very likely a good paediatrician. But Dr. Milligan appeared to make terrible life choices, and judging by the evidence, he was rubbish with interpersonal conflicts. First of all, what on God's Earth had made the man think that _that dinner_ would be a good idea? Had he ever even _met_ Sylvie Caboche before inviting her to mix and mingle with Martha? And come to that, what the hell had attracted him to that woman in the first place?

And then, seriously… to have spent time with her during his stint with Doctors Without Borders, and _not_ to have told Martha about it? Well, that was just plain stupid, and bloody suspicious. The Doctor knew that he was not the greatest at interpersonal relationships either (a fact of which Martha herself was a walking, living, breathing example), but he _was _a good judge of character, and good at sussing things out based on clues. And his conclusion was: there was no way Tom and Sylvie had only _worked together _in the DRC. Other stuff had happened, otherwise, why hide it?

He shut his eyes tight, as something began knocking at the door of his brain. He walked around the console and studied the data again… but couldn't get his mind off of Martha, Tom and Sylvie.

_Doctor, focus._

He stopped walking, and tried to concentrate on the mystery to be solved, a solution that might save human lives.

The head-stealing creature's energy signature was bizarre, and showed different corruptions, and an oscillating pattern that indicated intake and release at regular intervals: feeding.

Feeding. In an energy signature. Okay, what might that mean?

More importantly, what the hell kind of a person directly asks another person how their job could possibly be satisfying? Obviously, the Doctor wasn't _really _an administrative consultant for the NHS, but he'd found Sylvie's assumption insulting anyway.

_Okay. Great focusing. Brilliant._

And his answer to her question had been satisfying, especially since Sylvie had no comeback, and the look on Martha's face had registered admiration and triumph. She had appreciated his taking Sylvie down a notch, even if it was just for a few minutes.

_Shake it off... come on!_

And again, he studied the data.

Suddenly, he felt that something was on the tip of his consciousness… there was some very obvious truth he was missing. Something… something…

_Okay, take a step back,_ he told himself. _Return in an hour, the truth with reveal itself._

Anyway, it was worth a shot, because the longer he stared at it, the more he _thought _it through, the farther away a breakthrough seemed.

He realised that in spite of having paid for four rather spectacular meals, he had not eaten since early in the day. The dinner had been a bust, and he was famished. He decided to walk down the hall and make himself a sandwich.

As he pulled a packet of thinly-sliced ham from the refrigerator, and some squares of cheese, he allowed his brain to wander back to Tom Milligan and the women in his life.

The man was uninspiring, in the Doctor's book, and possibly worse than that. Perhaps he and Sylvie were good for each other…

…but then, could Sylvie really be _good _for anyone?

And none of this was good for Martha. Shouldn't she be concentrating on her career, or at least on something loftier than this fiancé-and-his-ex-girlfriend drama? She was deserving of so much more than all of that. He wanted her to be happy, be social, and to have people in her life, to have love, have fun, have everything that humans want and need…

But Tom Milligan wasn't it.

She needed someone in her life that could give her a _journey_, as though life were an undertaking, not just something to be got through each day. Or, at the very least, someone who could appreciate the journey she took each day at her job, and the exploration she herself represented, as a complex woman to be learned-about, appreciated, loved and valued.

She needed someone who lets her be brilliant – _wants _her to be brilliant, in fact – and nurtures and coaxes her brilliance out of her. And, that someone should be inspired to brilliance by her!

"And of course," the Doctor said aloud, as he sucked an errant drop of mustard from his index finger. "She needs someone who's going to concentrate on _her,_ for crying out loud. I mean, what would she want with a bloke who's hung up on someone else? She ought to just leave…"

He stopped cold.

He realised a bit late that he might as well have been talking about himself. What she doesn't need, and what she does.

"Oh. Wow," he mused as he lost concentration and the butter knife he'd been using fell to the floor.

And that loud, clanging noise coincided with an electronic buzz coming from the Doctor's pocket.

Her number came up on the display, and his hearts leapt into his throat.

Nevertheless, he opened the phone, and said, "Hi. Didn't expect to hear from you so soon."

* * *

**Stay tuned, folks! More to come on the Sylvie situation! **

**Leave a review in the meantime - it will make my week! :-) Thanks for reading!**


	4. Chapter 4

**People definitely have some strong feelings about Sylvie! And well they should - she's quite a force to be reckoned with, isn't she? Well, let's learn a bit more about her... and Tom. ;-)**

**The Doctor, when we left off, was having a little moment of self-awareness, realizing the parallel between himself and Tom, and how they had treated Martha as second-best, when really, she is inferior to no-one. She deserves more, obviously, and the Doctor is coming around to new revelations to that end. As if on cue, Martha had rung, though he hadn't expected to hear from her so soon...**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

FOUR

"So," she chirped. "How much of a disaster was that dinner?"

"On a scale of one to ten? Eighteen," the Doctor said, picking the knife up off the floor, the one that had dropped when he'd realised that Martha Jones had _never _been treated properly… not as long as he'd known her.

"And you were totally right about Sylvie," Martha continued. "She is terrifying. Well, not so much terrifying as just… kind of evil. But the point still stands."

"Sorry," he said.

"For what?"

"Sylvie. You shouldn't have to put up with that. Any of it. Anything like it," he said. "And I'm sorry for my part in it."

"Your part in it? Are you mad?" she laughed. "I'm the one who dragged _you_ into it!"

"No, I don't just mean Sylvie, and I don't just mean tonight…" he told her, rather exasperated at how difficult it was to express himself. "I mean, all the Sylvies of the world. All the Tom Milligans of the world who are, you know... hung up on the Sylvies of the world."

"Well, Doctor, if you've begun over-identifying with him and his can't-get-over-the-ex situation, you can stop torturing yourself now," she said. "You and he are totally different men, with totally different agendas in life, and totally different women in your past."

"Be that as it may…"

"Which may not _seem _like it means that much, but it does. Meeting Rose didn't make me wonder what in God's name you were thinking," Martha continued. "If anything, it was the opposite. And she didn't strike me as a complete nutter in the first two minutes of knowing her."

"Glad to hear that."

"You lost her under _tragic_ circumstances, and as I understand it, you couldn't get past it because of unfulfilled potential. Lack of closure. Words left unsaid. The loss to you was so great because of things you were never able to give her."

"Yeah," he muttered very quietly, rather taken aback to hear Martha Jones speak on this topic so matter-of-factly.

"That speaks to you as a man of depth," she went on. "And of selflessly mourning for things you could have shared, ways that you might have enriched each other… in spite of myself, I actually find it kind of beautiful."

"Thanks," he muttered.

"Tom says he loved Sylvie, but after hearing the whole sordid story, when it all comes down to it, I have to think that he can't get free of her because of… her. He's attached to _her_. Her body, her voice, her mouth… the way she kisses, and does _other _things. The things she does, says, the way she can make him feel. The fact that she's insinuated herself into his life, like an injection into the circulatory system."

"You can take the doctor out of the hospital, but…"

"Some of that could be love, but most of it is just carnal."

"Did he tell you that?"

"Not in so many words, but…" and with that, her phone started cutting out, though he could hear her voice continuing to speak through a choppy connection. A moment later, he heard her say, "I mean he can't get his mind off her even though she drives him chuffing bonkers."

"Well, that last part could very well be love," he said. "But I didn't hear a bunch of what you said – you're cutting out. Where are you?"

"Tube station. Damn – reception is spotty down here."

"What are you doing? Just walking about?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "I didn't want to see him anymore tonight. I'm going to go back to the flat tomorrow morning after he's gone, and pick up my things, and probably move back home."

"So it's over, eh?"

"Oh, dear God, yes."

"Because of the thing about the DRC?"

"Basically. Although, the DRC is just the _official _reason, that's really a symptom of a larger problem. And not just because Sylvie was _there, _and Tom didn't tell me, but…"

"I know… they had to have been shagging in the jungle."

"Yep. That's hard to take, I won't lie."

"I'm sorry, Martha."

"But more than that... it's really because of the long, long history of Sylvie's crap, and Tom's inability to wrest himself out of it, that I can't deal with. That woman is a monster, and Tom is her prey. It's ridiculous."

"Where are you staying tonight?"

"I don't know," she said. "I was going to head over to Tish's flat."

"Stay with me," he said. "I'll come find you."

"Oh, Doctor, you don't have to _put me up_ for the night," she said. "Tish has a perfectly good sofa – that's what sisters are for."

"I've got sixteen perfectly good sofas. Well, twelve. Well, actually, nine good ones and a few others that are a bit…" he trailed off. Then he sniffed, coming back to himself. "Anyway, I've also got an empty bedroom with some of your things still in it," he said.

"I dunno," Martha said, feigning indecision. "I'll be missing out on quality girl talk."

"I won't say that I can do girl talk, but if you want to trash Sylvie… I've met her. You don't have to spend any time on context, because I'm right there with you."

"You've very persuasive, Doctor."

"I'll make some coffee – or pull some whiskey out of the cabinet, whichever you prefer – and we'll talk. You can tell me the _whole sordid story_, as you called it. Then you can sleep for three days straight if you want, and I can still get you back to your flat to collect your things tomorrow morning."

"All right, you've won me over," she said. "Again. But I'll come find you. I'm not ready to stop walking angrily about the streets of London yet."

He told her where he was parked, and she said she was a fifteen-minute walk away.

"Just be safe," he said. "It's a big city. Have you eaten?"

"Nope. Too busy watching my love life go down in flames."

"I'll make you a sandwich when you get here."

* * *

For a while, he waited for Martha to arrive, and he explored within himself why he'd been so keen to get her here tonight. A sister is absolutely the sort of person who should be there for a young woman who's just split from her fiancé over a slightly evil, obsessive, oversexed ex.

But _he_ wanted to be the one to talk her through it.

Was it really for _her _own good?

He considered the idea that he might be reeling from Sylvie just a bit himself, and maybe needed some reassurance that he wasn't just a cynical bastard, that she actually _is _as astonishingly brazen a person as she seems.

He also thought perhaps it was just because he was curious about Sylvie, and about Tom. He wanted more of their story. Why couldn't they keep away from each other? What in the name of Rassilon had happened when they broke up? Now _that _had to be one hell of a yarn.

Tom had reported that the (official) end of their relationship had come in a storm of screaming and tears, and to Sylvie, he'd said, "Things had changed dramatically, and quite quickly, and I was never sure why."

"People change, Tom," was all Sylvie had had to offer.

"Yes, but after all that time? With what we'd been through together, _that _sort of change? Come on, Sylvie. There had to be something behind it…. If I had done what you did, I'd be in prison! But you… you haven't ever even apologised. You've never even acknowledged that what you tried to do was wrong!"

This had led Martha to ask, "Jesus, what the hell happened with you two?"

What, indeed, the Doctor wondered?

He felt he needed to know. Though, he was aware, there's a difference between needing and wanting. He _wanted _to know what Sylvie had done… maybe Martha had found out in the time since leaving the restaurant with Tom chasing after her.

But was that really it? The Doctor reflected, and knew that he could completely accept never finding out the truth of the Tom/Sylvie split, if Martha would just _get there_. If he could have her here, and be allowed to reassure her, be the one to dry her tears, as it were, then it didn't matter.

And _that _was the self-admission he'd been trying to coax out.

And why did he need to reassure her, at the cost of time with her sister?

He just did. It hurt him to know she was hurting, and that there was nothing _he _could do about it. He could rescue her from the jaws of some ridiculous intergalactic beastie, or from falling through a time portal, but this? This was out of his reach.

And, he'd been feeling guilty, sure… but needing her at his side just now, what that meant, he just didn't know.

And, to his surprise, about a quarter of an hour later, a woman clad in a gobsmacking red dress let herself into the TARDIS.

"Oh, that's right," he said, coming round the console to meet her. "You have a key."

"Indeed I do," she said, pulling the door shut behind her, and locking it. "Would you like it back?"

"Nah," he said. "Keep it for emergencies."

She made her way up the ramp, gave him a long, luxurious, comforting hug, then asked, "Do you still have those blue silk pyjamas?"

"Mine? The ones I wore on Yiphstead when we were purging the squishy yellow Sothos thingies from the war fields?"

"Yeah. Do you still own them?"

"Of course."

"Can I borrow them?"

He smiled. "Sure. Any particular reason?"

"I want to get out of this dress," she said. "And… I like those pyjamas. They bring back good memories."

"Come with me," he said.

He led her down the hall, through his bedroom (where she had never been before) to his wardrobe. He pulled the garments from the top shelf, and handed them to her. "I'll leave you to change, then meet you in the parlour. Promised you a sandwich, and I shall deliver."

"Thanks," she said, with a relieved look on her face.

And, five minutes later, she wandered into the parlour, where he already sat, waiting, leafing through a book about Grosks. She was wearing only the top half of the pyjama set, which covered her bum, and most of her thighs.

"Drink? Coffee? Whiskey?"

"How about both?"

"As you wish," he said, standing up, and moving to the small bar behind the sofa. He poured some fresh hot coffee that had apparently been brewing within the TARDIS walls, and then dropped about an ounce of Irish whiskey in it, followed by a splash of cream, and a sugar cube.

"Fabulous, thank you," she said, taking the mug, a long sip, then a bite of her sandwich.

"Dr. Jones, the first thing I would like to say is, I'm sorry for your loss," he said, as she chewed, poising to bite into his own sandwich. "The end of a relationship, no matter how tumultuous or much-needed, is always difficult, and I'm sorry you're having to go through it."

"Thank you, Doctor. I'll be okay."

"I know you will. And the second thing I'd like to say is, speaking of tumultuous ends to relationships, did you get to find out what the hell happened when they broke up? I mean, the way he carried on… what did he say? She's never even acknowledged that what she tried to do was wrong?"

"I learned all about it," she sang. "It's… harrowing."

"Can you tell the story?"

She took another bite, and took a deep breath. "Their story begins in Paris, in Tom's final year at uni."

She went on to recount for him what Tom had told her about how he and Sylvie had first met in a club, and spent a dirty weekend together, and how Tom had tried simply to return to his life in London afterwards.

"Well, get this. Within two weeks, she phoned and told him she'd moved _here_," Martha said.

"Here? To London?"

"Yep. Apparently there's a good nursing programme that she'd got into and so, there she was, right in his backyard. One Friday night, he got… let's just say _lonely for company,_ and he rang her. Then, well…"

"I can guess."

She nodded. "He described forty-eight hours that constituted the most explosive _human interaction_ of his life thus far. Even far beyond what they did in the toilet cubicle in the club, and whatever they did over that weekend in Paris. Whatever it is that that woman can do with her mouth, apparently, it's like…"

"Okay, I don't think I need _that_ in my brain," the Doctor said, exaggeratedly shaking it off.

"So, I guess after all of that, she was asking him to call in sick to work, so they could continue."

"After two days?"

Martha nodded.

"Blimey," he commented. "That's a formidable sex drive."

"He didn't want to call in sick, and she got really angry, and then asked if she could meet his mother."

"What? They'd been in each other's company twice!"

"Yep," Martha confirmed. "And there are a few other things she did that sort of led Tom to believe that she might be a tad more intense than he was ready for."

"Oh, really? There's a shock."

"He didn't want to date her – be in a relationship with her, I mean – so he tried to get away from her, but she kept popping up at the same pubs, the same clubs… every couple of weeks, he'd see her by chance."

"By chance?" he asked, with one eyebrow raised.

"I know, not bloody likely, right?"

"And let me guess," the Doctor said with a smirk. "Each time they saw each other _by chance_, she threw herself at him, and they'd have another… shall we say, _intense human interaction_?"

"Yeah, as I understand it, for like a year and a half while she was in nursing school and he was in med school, they just had a lot of sex, and not much else. No meaningful conversations, no romance… no dinners except that one she talked about tonight, when he had to order for her because her English was weak. But that was early on, when Tom was still sort of flirting with the idea of Sylvie-the-girlfriend. They didn't go to the cinema, they didn't spend time with each other's friends, they didn't watch telly together or anything… every now and then, they'd just _find each other_ somehow or another, and try to vibrate the screws out of his bed."

"And she wore him down into… boyfriend-hood."

"Well, funny thing," Martha said, with a bitter chuckle. "He told her he wanted to stop, because he was afraid that their non-relationship was actually getting in the way of him finding an actual relationship."

"How did she take it?"

"She was pissed off and started throwing things," Martha shrugged. "But you haven't even heard the weirdest part of the story yet."

"I didn't think so," he muttered, leaning forward to listen intently. "Keep talking."

"Like a year went by after they stopped being fuck buddies, Tom's friend Amos was supposed to get married, and the best man set up a stag weekend in Amsterdam."

"Uh-oh."

"So, the boys were walking through the Red Light district, as boys do, I suppose, and who should they see in the window of a brothel?"

"No."

"Yes."

The Doctor pulled his hand down over his face, and swore. "You're kidding."

"Well, I wasn't there, but this is what Tom says happened. She had taken a break from nursing school and decided to try her hand at being a sex-worker. Doesn't that sound like good fun?"

"Either that, or she knew where he was headed, and installed herself in one of those places…"

Martha stopped and thought for a few seconds. "What? How could that be? She'd have to know which street he was going to walk down, and where he would look…"

"I dunno," he shrugged. "It just seems like she goes wherever he is in the world. It's weird."

"So…" Martha said, looking down at the floor. She sighed heavily, and continued. "There she is in Amsterdam, literally in a display window. So he paid for her, and shagged her again in Amsterdam."

"Of course he did."

"Along with three of his friends."

"What? All at once?"

"I asked that exact question. The answer is yes. Including the one getting married."

"Wow. I suppose it _was _her job..."

Martha said, "You'll be glad to know that Amos' fiancée found out, and broke it off."

"Fancy that."

"Right? So yet another year went by, Tom finished medical school, and got the chance to do his residency in France – in Nîmes."

"Oh, lovely. I like Nîmes," he said. "I laid a brick or two in the arena – someday I'll show you which ones. The craftsmanship is superb, if I do say so myself."

"But do you see where I'm going with this?"

"Yes," he said. "She followed him there, too."

"Sort of. She's from Arles."

"Ah. Just down the road."

"And she'd decided to go back home after her _literal _year-long side-job as a whore."

"Now, now. In Amsterdam, that's honest work."

"Sorry. I don't want to be judgey, but… Jesus, Doctor. I just can't bloody believe this woman." Martha took a deep breath, once again. "So, Sylvie was back in France, in the south, having found work floating about regional hospitals, after finishing nursing school. She and Tom ran into each other one night at this café in Nîmes, right next to the arena, as it happens, and… well, that's when she finally wore him down. He reckoned the universe wouldn't let him hide from her, and he found that he didn't want to anymore. He found that he actually wanted to be with her. Clearly, he'd been _drawn _to her in that one very key way… and tonight, Tom told me that she's actually quite a skilful nurse, and is great with kids."

"Hm. Who knew?"

"Those would be the sorts of things that would make Tom Milligan fall in love with someone… even if he'd only been _in lust _before. He assured me that she's clever and talented, and has a generous, kind side that I suppose I'll never see, and that her relentless personality can be, and has been, used for good. They were in a proper relationship then, for over a year. They lived together for ten months. Talked about getting married, having a whole slew of kids…" Martha sighed heavily.

"I can't believe he told you all this."

"I asked him to," she confessed. "After being bludgeoned through a non-dinner with that woman, I had to know more. And then I had to know everything, because it was starting to feel like our entire relationship was a lie." She stared at the floor sadly.

"Does it still feel that way?"

"Yes," she said. "My relationship with you was a lie too."

"No," he told her, wincing a little. It actually hurt him to hear.

"Well, not our friendship, but our _relationship _as Tom knows it, never existed."

"Did you tell him?"

"No," she admitted. After a long pause, she said, "Between you and him, I'd ask what I'd have to do to find something real – maybe leave the planet? But that wouldn't help, would it?"

He smirked. "Not if your ducking me, love."

"I'd never try to duck you," she assured him, absently, quietly.

There was a substantial silence, and then, the Doctor said, "Martha, before I lend my oh-so-astute expertise to this topic, I need to know: are you seriously done with him? You are not marrying him, ever? Not going to continue to be entangled with Dr. Milligan in any meaningful way?"

"I'm seriously done with him. I could never trust him again, knowing what I know. Not as long as she's alive."

"Agreed."

"So, say what you have to say."

He took a sip of whiskey from a short tumbler, then said, "He's been a naughty boy, even while he's been engaged to you, and he knows what she's like. Relentless, conniving, and clearly wants him… and he _still _brought her to dinner. What was he trying to accomplish, exactly? Closure? Airing out dirty laundry? I'm sorry, Martha, but one might, in a moment of cynicism, think that…"

"He was _trying_ to sabotage us? Yeah, that occurred to me, too. Tom said I was barmy, but… the subconscious is a strange, strange thing. I mean, I guess I've been choosing to think of it as… like what you said at dinner, walking through fire to see if we could survive. Because it's a hell of a lot better than going through this a year from now, or five years."

"But he could have _told _you about a lot of it, without the baptism-by-fire nature of it all."

"Yes, he could have."

Another protracted silence was pressing down upon them, and the Doctor had got up to refill both of their glasses. And that was when the Cloister Bell sounded, from somewhere deep within the TARDIS.

"Oh, that can't be good," Martha said, sitting up straight, eyes wide with alarm. "Doesn't that thing only ring for doom and gloom?"

"Yeah," he answered, brow furrowed. "Sorry, I guess we'll have to table this conversation."

"Okay," she said, standing up. "What's wrong?"

"Not sure," he told her.

"Well, let me find some trousers, and I'll meet you in the console room."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," she shrugged. "Where else do I need to be tonight?"

* * *

**Reviews are love! Thanks for reading!**


	5. Chapter 5

**With Tom safely in her past now (as of what? an hour ago?) Martha is free to jump into the fray with the Doctor again, should she so choose. Unfortunately, she'll have to set aside the Irish coffee and the cosy shoulder to cry on... for the moment. But excitement awaits! **

* * *

FIVE

Martha checked through the drawers and the wardrobe in the room where she used to "live" and sleep in the TARDIS, but she had only left behind a few DVDs, some toiletries, a blanket and a lavender throw-rug. No clothing.

So, she went down a dark, forgotten hall, into a dark, forgotten bedroom where she had never dared go before. She knew from her original days in the TARDIS that this had been where Rose had lived and slept. She also knew that Rose had left the TARDIS unexpectedly, and hadn't had time to pack her things and take them with her.

During her tenure with the Doctor, Martha's sensitivity regarding Rose was extremely acute, and her feelings prone to injury. Simply put: her unrequited love and jealousy would not let her go anywhere near there with a clear head.

These days, things were different. She'd got some distance from (and therefore, perspective on) the situation, some distance from the Doctor, she'd been through the wringer with Tom, and had even met (and liked) Rose Tyler.

All of which was why she felt no compunction about raiding Rose's old bedroom for something to wear, that wasn't a red cocktail dress. She reckoned that the cheeky blonde, back safely in a parallel universe, wouldn't need any of this stuff again. In a drawer, Martha located a pair of black nylon leggings with a wide white stripe down the sides, and pulled them on. Next, she looked in the closet and found several pairs of Sketchers, one of which appeared to be barely-worn, so Martha slipped her sockless feet into them.

"Where'd you find those?" the Doctor asked as Martha entered the console room.

"Rose's room," she answered. "She's taller than me – reckoned I shouldn't try to wear her jeans."

He looked her over. "Yeah, I guess she is. Still going with my pyjama top, eh?"

"Yeah. Why not?

And then, the Cloister Bell, which had stopped ringing a few minutes earlier, rang again.

"Another beheading," the Doctor said in response, his voice low, almost a growl. "The bell is urging me on. Something's tilting, and… well, presumably there's something we could do to stop it."

"Where is it happening? India again?"

"Actually… heh, weirdly, in Nîmes."

"Are you kidding?"

"Nope," he answered. "Ah, life's little coincidences never cease to amaze me."

The Doctor threw a few gears into place, and the TARDIS moved. They stepped outside onto a plaza, between the famous Roman arena, and a city block of posh-looking hotels, cafés, upscale flats…

Within seconds, they began to hear screams.

Within seconds after that, a man came running out of a hotel just to their left, wrapped from the waist-down in a white sheet, with a look of total driving panic on his face.

"Oh, look," Martha said, cheerily. "I must be back with the Doctor."

The Doctor patted the TARDIS, and said, "Trust the old girl to bring me where I need to be."

"Somebody help!" cried the man in the sheet.

"It's all right, it's all right," the Doctor cried back, running towards him, then grabbing him by the shoulders to steady him. "We've got you, we've got you! What's going on, what's with the screaming?"

"Are you the police?" the man asked, frantically.

"No, we're doctors."

The man pointed up at the hotel and said, "My boyfriend is up there, and he's… he's… injured."

"Injured how?" Martha wanted to know.

His eyes grew big and shocked and he took a step back from her. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"You might be surprised," the Doctor said. "Tell us what's happened."

"Wait," Martha said. "He's injured, not dead?"

"I don't know, honestly," said the man. "It was… it was… he was alive a minute ago…"

"I'm going up," Martha said. "What room?"

"Erm…" the man said, thinking. "Second floor. Go to the left, second room on the left."

"I'll find it," she said, and ran toward the hotel.

As she ran through the lobby, a voice said, "What's going on?" from the front desk. "Should I call the police?"

"No!" Martha shouted. "We're handling it. Just… no!"

She ran up the stone steps to the second floor, and followed the directions the man had given…

The door had its own tiny hallway that came off from the main hallway, like a little branch. She slowed down as she got there, and saw the door propped open, and suddenly wished she had brought one of her UNIT-issue stunners with her. As it was, she was here, defenceless, in someone else's clothes (actually, two other people's clothes), with only her wits to protect her.

She gently pushed the door open, and saw, on the floor, a man, nude, lying in a puddle of blood. He had his hands to his throat, and blood seemed to be coming fast.

"Please help me," he begged her, his voice raspy.

"Oh my God!" she exclaimed. "Okay… okay. I'm going to help you, sir. Just don't try to talk."

"Help…"

"I'm going to try. Please be still, okay?" she said, moving toward the bed.

The top sheet was gone because the boyfriend had taken it and run down the front stairs with it. Martha wrestled a pillowcase free of the pillow, and rolled it up into a band.

"Where's… where's…"

"Your boyfriend is downstairs – it's how we knew you were here, he yelled for help," she said. "What's your name?"

"Gregoire," the man answered, weakly.

"Gregoire, I'm Martha," she said, kneeling at his side. "I'm a doctor."

"Really?"

"Yes," she assured him. She put her hands on his, now feeling sticky warm blood come into contact with her bare hands. She had rarely ever had this happen – she was scrupulous about always bringing kit gloves with her.

She tried to coax his fingers away from the wound. "I'm going to try to stop the bleeding, Gregoire, and to do that, I need you to move your fingers. Don't worry, I know what I'm doing."

With one hand, she helped him uncover the laceration, and with the other, she pressed the pillowcase-cum-band across the source of the blood. She lifted his head, and now used both hands to wrap his neck tightly.

That's when she noticed his eyes drifting shut.

"Gregoire!" she shouted. "Gregoire! Stay with me!"

His eyes opened again, just barely, and he said, "I can't."

"Yes, you can," she said. "Say the alphabet for me."

"A, B, C, D, E, F…" he slurred, before his eyes slid shut again.

The pillowcase began to soak through.

"Gregoire! Gregoire!" she shouted.

There was no answer.

"Shit," she hissed, before laying the man's head down and standing up. "Got to get you out of here…"

And that's when the doorway was darkened by yet another scantily-clad man. He was wearing a pair of well-tailored blue suit trousers, and nothing else. He was very Mediterranean-looking, with deep eyes, very full lips, and a gorgeously muscular chest.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Jean-Marc," the man answered with a smirk.

"Did you do this?" she asked, pointing to the man very near death on the floor.

He smiled, and answered, "I think we both know the answer to that."

Martha was back under the TARDIS' influence, and so she had perceived everyone she had met so far as speaking English. But Gregoire, his boyfriend and the front desk clerk all spoke with more or less the same accent as she. This Jean-Marc had a French accent thick enough to cut with pruning shears.

_He must be _actually_ speaking English, and this is how it sounds._

_And I've heard that accent before. Quite recently, in fact. Ugh._

"You've probably killed him, you realise that?" Martha shouted, unsure of what else to do or say. The man was between her and the exit.

Jean-Marc sighed. "I know. I can't say I didn't mean to, but actually… " he approached, looking almost sadly at the body on the floor. After standing there staring for a few moments he said, "Yes, he is dead."

Martha knelt, and felt Gregoire's pulse. There was nothing.

She uncovered the wound on his neck, and found that it was no longer gushing blood.

He _was_ dead.

But she also noticed that it was not a clean cut. Whatever Jean-Marc had done, it had been brutal. He had not slashed Gregoire's throat with a knife… the throat had been ripped open.

_Well, at least it's not his whole head this time._

"You're right, he's gone" Martha said, instinctively looking at her watch for time of death. She was now aware that she could bolt for the door if she wanted… but something in her was making her stay. Outrage? He instinct as a doctor? Her instinct as a trouble-shooter of aliens?

"This won't do," said Jean-Marc. "This won't do at all."

And then the man wandered over to a desk against the wall to his left, and kicked the chair hard enough to topple it over and make an almighty ruckus.

"What do you mean it won't do?" she asked, angrily.

"I need to feed. I have energy, and no nourishment… it will fade, and now I have to start all over. This won't, won't, won't, won't do!" Jean-Marc shouted.

She started backing toward the door.

"You need to feed?"

"Yes," he said. Then he noticed her moving to escape, and smiled. "Don't worry, _ma douce_. I have no interest in you."

* * *

Martha ran off and disappeared into the hotel, to help the boyfriend of the man in the sheet.

"Okay, what's your name?"

"Alain," answered the man in the sheet. "But I'm fine, I don't need seeing-to."

"You're shaking like a leaf," the Doctor said. "Have a seat."

He led Alain to the side of a planter where there were built-in benches, and urged him to sit.

"Don't you think we should get the police?" Alain asked.

"Maybe. Tell me what happened."

Alain leaned forward, and buried his head in his hands. "You're going to think I'm a nutter."

"No, I won't," the Doctor told him earnestly. "That's a promise. Tell me."

Alain, sat up, took a deep breath, and said, "Well, my boyfriend Gregoire and I, we've been together for… I don't know, nine months or so. And sometimes, well, we…"

"What?"

Alain slid to the side, away from the Doctor just a bit. He answered quietly. "Sometimes we like to, you know… have others join us."

"Okay, and you had a _third party_ with you in the hotel tonight?"

"Yeah, you know… it's a laugh. Sometimes three is better than two. And we're both okay with it, and we_ all _have fun at it, so it's not cheating. It's not…"

"Okay," the Doctor said, lightly, cutting him off. "Not judging. Continue talking about what happened tonight."

"So, we met up with this guy named Jean-Marc at a restaurant, and then decided to bring him back to the hotel with us."

"Which restaurant?"

"La Bourse," said Alain. "But actually, Gregoire's known him for a while."

"Known him… _known _him?"

"Well, yeah… this wasn't their first time together."

"How did _they_ meet? And when?"

"A couple years ago, I think. At a club in Geneva... Feubleu, I think. They had sex when they first met, and then it kinda continued after that."

"What _kinda continued?_"

"The sex, what do you think?"

"But when you say _kinda continued,_ does that mean they were in a relationship after that, or that they kept meeting up in clubs, what?"

"It matters?" Alain asked, a bit incredulous of this _doctor_.

"It's starting to," the Doctor answered, with rising alarm.

Alain stood up. "I'm calling the police."

"No," the Doctor protested, using all of his restraint not to grab onto the man and freak him out further. "Please… I can help. Just tell me the rest of the story."

"Jean-Marc is still in there," Alain realised, now a bit panicked.

"He's not going to hurt anyone else," the Doctor said.

"You can't know that!"

"Yes I can! Or, at least I think I can. Now sit. Please. Finish." The Doctor's voice was shaky with fear and emotion now.

Alain didn't sit, but he continued his story. "Well, Jean-Marc and Gregoire… I guess you could call it an on-again, off-again sort of thing. They'd meet up once in a while just for sex, but then wind up being together, you know, romantically, for a couple of months. It happened again and again, until Gregoire would decide that Jean-Marc was too intense, and he'd break it off, each time vowing never again."

"But Jean-Marc would always find him."

"Yeah," said Alain. "When Gregoire and I met, he had all this weird baggage… like Jean-Marc was this guy who couldn't be forgotten, but he was _so bad_ for him, you know? Like a drug."

"I get that."

"And then, we decided to do this little getaway to Nîmes – we live in Lille – and who should turn up in the restaurant tonight, where we had dinner?"

"Let me guess," the Doctor chuckled.

"And Gregoire was kind of excited, because I was finally getting to meet the illustrious Jean-Marc. So, the three of us had drinks together, and I had to admit, he was… captivating," Alain said. Then he paused, and sighed. "Whenever Gregoire and I are out and about, and we meet someone we both like, we dismiss ourselves to the washroom to talk about whether we want to invite this person home with us for… you know. And we did that with Jean-Marc. I was bit reluctant, but Gregoire… he just kept talking about how great the sex was with Jean-Marc, and he wanted me to experience it for myself. Like some amazing amusement park ride, that I had to try to believe. So I agreed. And he was not wrong – Jean-Marc is a marvel to behold. In every possible way. It was like nothing I've ever experienced."

At this point Alain's eyes had gone dark and worried, and he looked at the Doctor with fear and desperation.

"But things took a turn, didn't they?" asked the Doctor.

"Yes," Alain answered, his voice trembling. "It was horrifying."

And that was when the Doctor's eye was caught, for the second time that evening, by Martha Jones coming through a doorway. This time, she was exiting the hotel into which she had disappeared a few moments before.

"Uh-oh," the Doctor said, seeing her.

Alain turned and looked at her, then asked, "Uh-oh, what? What's that mean?"

The Doctor knew that Martha had gone upstairs to help an "injured" Gregoire, and that his "injury" was probably fairly gory… the fact that she wasn't rushing about was a bad sign.

"Oh, don't worry just now… finish the story. How exactly did it become horrifying?"

* * *

**I've been absolutely loving your reviews! Please keep them coming! Love you guys. :-D**


	6. Chapter 6

**The Doctor is taking care of the terrified Alain, and Martha has just seen the demise of Alain's unfortunate boyfriend, Gregoire. She also met the illustrious Jean-Marc, whose sexual terrorism (for lack of a better term!) seems remarkably familiar. **

**Remember the couple had invited Gregoire's persistent ex to join them in the bedroom, so that Alain could experience the magic of Jean-Marc. And, well, things went awry. Poor Gregoire.**

**Here we go! Enjoy! :-)**

* * *

SIX

Just when Alain was getting to the "horrifying" part of his story, the Doctor's eye was caught, for the second time that evening, by Martha Jones coming through a doorway. This time, she was exiting the hotel into which she had disappeared a few moments before.

"Uh-oh," the Doctor said, seeing her.

Alain turned and looked at her, then asked, "Uh-oh, what? What's that mean?"

The Doctor knew that Martha had gone upstairs to help an "injured" Gregoire, and that his "injury" was probably fairly gory… the fact that she wasn't rushing about was a bad sign.

"Oh, don't worry just now… finish the story. How exactly did it become horrifying?"

Alain gulped. "Well, Jean-Marc and I were… you know, _with_ each other for a bit, and Gregoire watched. We do that sometimes. It was, like… explosive, you know? I was thinking, 'I get it now – I get the Jean-Marc hype.' It's hard to describe."

"I don't think you need to," the Doctor told him.

"But as amazing as it was, I guess, in hindsight, it did sort of seem like Jean-Marc was just trying to finish with me as soon as possible so he could get to Gregoire. And that's exactly what happened."

"He turned toward Gregoire," the Doctor said. By then, Martha had reached them in mid-plaza, and had a forlorn look on her face. She and the Doctor exchanged a meaningful look, and she had oh-so-subtly shaken her head to indicate that Gregoire hadn't made it through.

"He turned toward Gregoire," Alain echoed. "And they were together for a bit, while I watched. And I gotta say, even _watching _Jean-Marc was somehow amazing. I was just starting to think _who is this guy? What planet is he from?_ when he got this predatory look on his face. At first, I just thought that's what he's like, you know? He's a fiend. He's an animal. He's insatiable… it's kind of hot. But then…"

There was a long pause while the Doctor and Martha waited.

"But then," Alain continued. "He attacked Gregoire, and… oh God, you're going to think I've lost my mind."

"No," the Doctor said earnestly. "I said I wouldn't, and I meant it."

"Jean-Marc's mouth opened up like… I don't know what. Like a snake, you know, how their jaw can unhinge and swallow a fucking rat? Like one of those fish whose mouth is the size of their whole body?"

"I see," the Doctor said, sombrely.

"It was like his head turned inside-out, and he became... I don't know. Something else. He was trying to swallow Gregoire's whole head," Alain continued. "But he kind of missed, and Gregoire screamed and squirmed away, but the next thing I knew there was blood spurting everywhere and Gregoire was writhing on the floor."

"Then what happened?" the Doctor asked.

"I started yelling," Alain said, tears streaming down his face, his voice having faded to an appalled whisper. "It was sickening. I was terrified. And then Jean-Marc tried to go for him again, and his mouth did that thing again, where it opens like it wants to swallow…" Alain stopped, and shuddered.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said. "Please continue if you can."

"Well, I somehow found the wherewithal to get between them, even though I thought Jean Marc might try to bite my head off, too."

"But he didn't have any interest in you," the Doctor surmised.

"No, weirdly," said Alain. "He tried again to go after Gregoire, but I kept getting between them, and finally, Jean-Marc got really frustrated and left. And that's when I came running down the stairs."

Martha's eyes were wide as saucers at this revelation. Then she said, "I met Jean-Marc."

"You did?" asked the Doctor and Alain simultaneously.

"Yes."

"Are you okay?" asked the Doctor.

"I'm fine," she reported. "He didn't have any interest in me, either. I reckon it's not just because I'm a woman."

"It was Gregoire he wanted," Alain said. "Gregoire specifically. Is he going to be okay?"

"I'm afraid not," Martha said, gently.

"Oh my God," Alain said, breathlessly. "Do you mean he's dying? Can I at least say goodbye?"

"He's already gone. I'm sorry. He lost so much blood…"

Tears had been coming copiously for a few minutes, and now Alain gave a proper sob. "Fuck! I'm such a coward! Such a coward!"

"What?" the Doctor asked.

"I left him! I ran away!"

"You did what you had to."

"And he died all on his own, in a hotel room…"

"No," Martha reassured him. "He did not die all on his own. I was there. I was tending to him. He was not alone. I mean, I'm a stranger, but I'm better than no-one right?"

"Thank you," Alain choked, before repeating. "Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I'll have to tell his dad. I'll have to tell… everyone! What do I say? What the fuck do I say?"

From there, the man collapsed into tears of grief, fear, anger. He leaned against the Doctor, and just sobbed.

"We need to talk," he said to Martha, while he tried to comfort Alain. "ASAP."

* * *

The Doctor had given Alain a pair of his blue pin-striped trousers, and one of his burgundy t-shirts. He reckoned, if the man was going to talk to the police, he was going to need some clothing, and the Doctor really didn't have time to go diving into the large wardrobes in the backwaters of the TARDIS. So he'd grabbed what was handy.

Alain was muscular, and a little thicker round the middle than the Doctor, so the trousers zipped but didn't button, and the t-shirt fit him like second skin, but the grieving man didn't notice at all. He sombrely thanked the Doctor, and sat down on the sofa in the lobby of the hotel, while Martha called the police.

The three of them had already worked out "feasible" story that Alain could tell to the police. They all knew that Alain himself would be the prime suspect for a while, and that the woman at the front desk would report having seen the Doctor and Martha, but by then, they would be long gone and virtually untraceable. But Alain's story did not include them, and they all thought that was best.

"Unless you get into a bind, that is," Martha qualified. "But you can just tell them that you're the one who applied the pillowcase bandage to Gregoire's wound."

What actually happened didn't much matter, considering they were dealing with a non-human. "I reckon he'll be leaving the planet ASAP. Or shape-shifting, or teleporting to Guam or some such, before they can catch him," the Doctor said a bit later. He pulled the TARDIS door shut, locked it.

"We still didn't stop the thing that's beheading people," Martha said, making her way up the ramp. "Couldn't save Gregoire, traumatised Alain..."

"We'll be able to save the next victim," the Doctor said, hurrying up past her. He threw the TARDIS into gear, and the vessel began to move.

"You've already got another alert?" she asked, sensing his urgency, and that he had a specific destination in mind.

"Not exactly," he said. "I've got a story to tell you about Jean-Marc."

"Jean-Marc the head-hunter."

"Yeah, but first, Martha, you have to finish telling me about Sylvie and Tom."

"What, now?"

"Yes," he said. "Why did they break up?"

"Erm… basically, she became abusive."

"How?"

"Her sexual _tastes_ began to run to violent," Martha said. "She started with S&M – emphasis on the S – and spiralled out of control within a month."

"Over a month, she got remarkably more aggressive?"

"Yes," Martha said. "Tom went along with it for a bit, even though it made him nervous. She kept testing his trust – tying him down, blindfolding him, seeing how hard he'd let her hit him with a riding crop."

"And what brought it all to a peak?"

"She wanted to try erotic asphyxiation on him," Martha said, looking furrowed and worried.

"Strangling him during sex," he sighed.

"She kept telling him she wouldn't go too far, that the orgasm would be unbelievable, but he wouldn't let her."

"I can't say I blame him. And mind you, I've got a respiratory bypass."

"Then one night, he woke up, and she was on top of him, choking him."

"Lovely."

"She was naked, trying to get him aroused…"

"And that's what he meant when he said, if he'd done something like that to her, he'd be in prison," the Doctor commented, nodding.

"Yep. Come to that, why _isn't _she in prison for that? Blimey."

"She wanted something from him, and must've known she couldn't overpower him, so tried to weaken him with asphyxiation," he mused. "Tried to have sex with him while he was incapacitated so that he couldn't fight her off."

"But he did fight her off. He pushed her onto the floor, and that's when the screaming and yelling and tears began. And... they broke up that night… though…"

"Though?"

"Though it wasn't the last time she got to him in his sleep."

"How do you mean?"

"He said he tried to resist her in the jungle, but he woke up in the middle of the night and she was…"

He waited for her to finish, but then reckoned it didn't matter. "Doing something he hadn't asked for?"

"Yeah. But at least wasn't being violent."

"Back down from the rough stuff, return to her usual m.o. and get to him while he's unconscious. That must've been the only way she could get him to feed her."

"Excuse me? Feed her? Sorry, Doctor, but that's the most disgusting way I've ever heard it put."

"No, I don't mean… _that. _I mean, it was the only way she could get him involved in a sexual relationship again," he said, beginning to talk very quickly. "He was engaged to you, wanted to be faithful, yeah? So she played dirty, because she had to have him. And it had to be _him_."

"What the hell are you on about?"

"His signature must have faded, and she needed to work at him again," he went on. "She needed to be fed… like, another series of top-ups after being thwarted…"

"Doctor!" she yelled.

"Mm? Yes? What? Oh! Sorry!"

"What the hell, Doctor?"

"Martha, Jean-Marc is just like Sylvie."

He expected her to protest, but she did not.

Her mouth and eyes opened wide, and she stared at a spot just past him for a long few seconds, and then breathed, "Oh, my God."

"Alain told me the story of Gregoire and Jean-Marc," the Doctor said. "And it sounded awfully familiar."

"An oddly alluring person…" she said, absently, thinking only now of the creepy similarities between Sylvie and Jean-Marc, however briefly she'd met them both.

"Correction: an oddly alluring _being, _who zeroes in on a human, blows their mind sexually, and gets them addicted. Eventually they slip up, get too voracious, scare the pants off the human, so they get pushed away and resisted…"

"…but they keep coming back?" Martha asked.

"Yes," the Doctor said. "They must need to be fed with a single human energy signature over time, so it can mix with theirs and they can continue to appear human, and… well, there are other ways to do it, but sex is the easiest."

"Is it?"

"It is," he confirmed. "And the most fun. Because, repeated electrocutions do not foster good relationships - you pretty much have to hold the human hostage long-term, and that attracts attention from families and police and whatnot. A Kyronian energy converter would be spotted immediately... by everyone, including CERN. Can't transfer humans once a week to a different planet for an interface, so…"

"They hit below the belt."

"Yep," he said, popping the p. "All of the victims in India were found…"

"…in bed."

"Not necessarily, but always in some state of undress or another. And I'll bet you if we took a look at the pathology report, we'd find that they died mid-shag."

Martha was still lost in thought. She shook her head in disbelief. "She tracked him across the bloody continent, and then onto another."

"I'm not sure of the species yet, but it must have not only the ability to absorb and use a human energy signature, but also to detect it, once it's internalised it. Jean-Marc did the same to Gregoire."

"Are all of them… _French?_"

"French? Martha, they're not even _human_. They probably just have a nest or something, based in France, probably here in the south somewhere."

"Should I feel better or worse that Tom's crazy ex is an alien?"

"Oi," the Doctor said. "So's yours."

"We have to go find her, don't we?"

"I'm afraid so. Where do we start?

She sighed. "I think we both know the answer to that question."

* * *

**And now begins the hunt for Sylvie. The woman who disgusted and repelled them both is now the object of their search. How do they find her? What _would_ she be doing right now?**

**Thank you for reading - reviews have been few, so why not drop me one now? :-)**


	7. Chapter 7

**This story is about to take another big turn... my hope is that it's an "organic" turn, rather than an "out-of-nowhere" turn. In any case, I think you'll like this chapter. :-) At least I hope you do!**

**At the end of the previous chapter, the Doctor and Martha had come to the realization that they have to track down Tom Milligan, in order to save his life. Where would he be tonight, of all nights?**

* * *

SEVEN

As Tom had not answered his mobile phone after several tries, the Doctor and Martha Jones had no choice but to step out of the TARDIS, and make a beeline for the first flat on the left. It was after midnight on a sleepy London street, and there wasn't much commotion… although Martha was just a bit anxious about what she might find inside.

She ran up the concrete stairs in her borrowed Sketchers, and let herself into the building, then the flat. The Doctor followed.

"Tom?" she called out. "Tom, are you here? If you're here, answer me! Whatever you're doing, I swear I won't be upset, just… please let me know if you're here!"

She moved through the flat, looking about, behind the sofa, in the loo, she even pulled the curtain back to see if anyone was hiding behind it, or possibly on the little balcony behind.

The Doctor went down the hall and peeked into both bedrooms, but found nothing.

"He's not here," he said, meeting her again in the kitchen, just beside the front door. "No-one is. Any idea…"

He trailed off then, because he noticed Martha had frozen, and was now staring at a spot beyond him.

"You okay?" he asked her.

There was a long pause before she answered.

Her entire demeanour had changed. She'd gone from frantically trying to locate a man in order to save his life, to still, wistful. Remembering.

Truthfully, the Doctor had a hard time switching gears with her, slowing down his thoughts and body language, and calming the urgency within him. Something was happening with Martha Jones, and more than ever, he wanted to know _what_, and what he could do to help.

Her stare was blank, but he knew her well enough not to assume that meant her mind was blank just now, as well. In fact, he knew that the wheels inside of her mind were turning like mad...

At last, she said, rather quietly, "I'm fine. It's just hard being here." Then, she chuckled a bit and added, "That sounds daft, considering I was just here, living here, earlier this evening. I put on that red dress in that bedroom, there, and put on makeup and did my hair, in the vanity of _that _bathroom, not six hours ago. And I stepped out and went to meet you at _Okeanós _for dinner. And now… it's hard to believe that was the same month, let alone the same night."

"I'm sorry," he said. "Finally hitting you, is it? It's over with Tom?"

"I don't know if it's that. It's something else."

"Is it to do with Sylvie?"

"No," she said, distantly. Then she turned slowly, three-hundred-sixty degrees, looking about the home she used to share with the somewhat tragic Tom Milligan. "This flat represents a promise. The promise of a life, of a future. It's a promise I made to myself, as much as to him, or him to me."

"And what was that promise?" he asked. "To yourself, I mean?"

She looked at him, studied him hard in the semi-dark, but did not answer his question.

She wandered out of the kitchen, over to where to sofa was. Then, she said, "We are here, you and me… and I feel like I've broken my promise."

"You haven't."

"Oh, Doctor," she sighed. "You don't know… you couldn't know."

"I can't know everything, you're right. But…"

She took a deep breath, and ploughed right on through. "We're here right now, because we are operating under the assumption that Tom will have run straight to Sylvie after I climbed out of his car tonight. I'd said I was finished with him, so knowing what we know of those two, where else would he go? We came looking for them, expecting to find them shagging, didn't we?"

"Yes, we did," the Doctor said, quietly.

"That should've been disturbing. That should've been the bit that broke me, before even walking in here. And instead, I'm worried about something else. I'm wistful about losing this flat, and this promise, and not because of Tom."

He shoved his hands in his pockets and joined her at the sofa. It now lay between them. "Martha, I've got no idea what to say here. I'm getting the sense that you're looking for some sort of profound answers…and I'm sorry, but I haven't got them."

"I know."

"I wanted to be here for you tonight, be a friend to you, a comfort. Maybe that was a bad idea."

"You _are _a comfort. And no, it wasn't a bad idea," she said, with a little smile. Then the smile faded. "I'm just exploring the reasons why I walked in here expecting to find the man who, six hours ago, I was fully planning to marry, fucking his ex-girlfriend, and I'm not bothered by it."

"Maybe because we know who Sylvie is now," he said. "We know how she operates, what she wants, and that, frankly, none of this is Tom's fault. We'd been thinking that he's just a bloke who can't keep his you-know-what under control when a certain woman is about, but that's not the case, is it?"

"What are you saying?" she asked him, studying him again, as though seeing him for the first time.

And the Doctor, for his part, was beginning to really regret having brought this up. The last thing he wanted to do was to push Martha back toward Tom, but damn it, he _did _want to be a good friend. He _was _a good friend. And a good friend would have pointed this out.

"I just mean, Sylvie's charms are literally inhuman. They are specifically designed to keep men addicted, as what I assume to be a _survival mechanism_ for her. Tom, he's only human, and he's got no idea what's hit him. He's never, ever stood a chance against Sylvie, no matter how much he loves you, no matter how much resolve he's got."

"I suppose."

"Which means, Martha… Tom isn't a bad bloke."

"I never thought he was."

"A little part of you thought so."

"I just thought he was, like you said, a man who can't keep it in his pants," she shrugged. "And is weak-willed. And a bad judge of character."

"Okay, fine. But now you know."

"So, what… you want us to patch things up now?" she asked, a bit nonplussed by the suggestion.

He sighed, hating himself. "There is a possibility that you _can _trust him, Martha. Once Sylvie's out of the picture – and I'm planning on putting her _out of the bloody picture, _believe me – her influence will be lifted, and maybe you and Tom can start over."

She looked at him for a long time, her face inscrutable and flat. "Is that what you think I should do?"

"I didn't say that," he told her, quietly. "I'm just pointing out the fact that there was a promise made. To yourself, to him, to each other, whatever. And if you're in love with him, and he with you…"

Again, he trailed off. He didn't feel he needed to finish this particular thought. He couldn't quite bring himself to do so anyway.

After a long, tense moment, Martha said, "No. Nothing will ever be the same again. This relationship is tainted."

"Tainted."

"In the car tonight, when Tom was telling me about his adventures with Sylvie, he said, once you've poured red into a bucket of white paint, the only thing you'll ever have is pink. You can't separate the white out of it again. I guess that means you just have to start with new paint."

"Interesting thought."

"At the time that he said it, he was using it as an excuse for why he shagged Sylvie in the DRC… over and over and over again," Martha said. "But he wasn't completely wrong about the analogy."

"Okay. I understand. I just thought I'd be remiss if I didn't…"

"Besides," she interrupted. "What you said about love… that really hit home."

"What did I say about love?"

"You said that if I'm in love with him, and he's in love with me, maybe it's worth another go."

The Doctor knew specifically that he _didn't_ say that perhaps it was worth another go, but that _had _been the implied phrase, when he'd trailed off and decided not to continue talking. She'd got there on her own.

"Why did that hit home?"

She turned her back to him and flopped down on the sofa. He moved round to his right and joined her.

"It's just, I'm not sure he is in love with me, Doctor. If he ever was."

"I can't imagine that."

"He _told _me he was. Dutifully, every day before I left for work, he'd say _I love you_, and I'd say it back. But I don't know if I ever _felt_ he loved me. Do you know what I mean?"

"I'm not sure I do."

She sighed, pausing. Then, "When I was travelling with you, there at the end, you knew I loved you. And when you looked at me, couldn't you see it?"

"I suppose I could, yes."

"When I was with you, working alongside you, couldn't you feel it?"

"I could. Much to my own confusion."

"You knew I had your back. You knew I had your best interests at heart. You knew I cared more about your happiness than my own. You knew that if you hurt, I hurt. If you ever needed me, I'd drop everything to be at your side. You knew that I would give up everything I had if I could be with you... really _be _with you."

"I did. You showed me every day."

"Which is ironic, because I tried my hardest to keep it from you, but I couldn't. Even before that day in the cottage when I let it all come spilling out of my mouth at John Smith, you knew. You can't fake this stuff. Can't. Not for long, anyway."

"Yeah."

"It might have made you feel flummoxed and maybe guilty, maybe frustrated. Maybe you felt like you wanted to avoid _ever_ thinking about it, but…"

"I knew."

"Even though I never said _I love you_."

"Even though."

"All I'm saying is, I've never had that kind of intrinsic certainty with Tom," she said. "He's seen me work, and I've felt that he respected me. I've comforted him in hard times, and I've felt that he needed me. We've made love, and I've felt that he wanted me. But never…"

"I'm sorry to hear that, Martha. You deserve more."

"It's this nebulous thing, totally undefinable. And yet, you know it when you have it. And you know it when you don't. Eventually."

She began to stare at her knees, surrendering to deep thought. She was vaguely aware that this conversation was delaying them getting to Tom and possibly saving him from decapitation.

They sat in the dark for a long time, the Doctor searching himself for the right words. He had the sense that the wrong ones could cause things to go south fairly quickly.

In her own time, to his relief, she was the one to break the silence again. "I'm just sitting here in our dark flat wondering if he loves me, or if I'm just the person he chose to save him from Sylvie."

"Ask him."

"No. Because I'm also wondering if I love him, or if he's just the person I chose to save me from you."

The Doctor took a deep breath. He hadn't exactly seen this coming, but it wasn't a surprise either. He turned his head to face her directly, his cheek against the sofa. The position was unexpectedly intimate.

"Did you need saving?" he asked her.

She turned her head to face him in the same way. Their noses were now no more than six inches apart, and their voices were low and private.

"Yes," she confessed. "Not in the same way as he did, but yes."

"I'm sorry."

"Doctor, when I said that this flat represented a promise I made to myself, that promise was about having a future without you. I needed that – I needed there to be light, and love, and _life_ after the Doctor. I needed to know it could be done. I was going to move on, come hell or high water."

"I see," he whispered. He contemplated his next words carefully, and in a space of ten seconds, changed his mind a hundred times about whether he should actually say them. But ultimately, he did. And he braced himself, just in case of impact. "So... after we save Tom, will _you_ still need saving?"

She didn't say anything for an uncomfortably long time. Then, "I really don't know how to answer that."

"Try."

She thought for a few seconds, then locked eyes with him. For the first time tonight, she felt it. _It. _The pull of the Doctor, of those big brown eyes, that mouth, the voice, the life, every alluring thing that he was. He wasn't _Sylvie_ or _Jean-Marc_ alluring, in that creepy, deliberately ensnaring, unnatural way. But left completely to his natural devices, he was bloody powerful and he knew it.

So the answer to his question was, "If I'm honest, yes. I probably will still need saving, because you're still you, and I'm still me."

"Okay. Then let me do it."

"Do what?"

"Save you," he said.

She smiled. "Let you save me from... you? Wouldn't that be a tad counterproductive?"

"Nah," he said. "Who better?"

"Who better?" she laughed. "Apart from literally _anyone_ else?"

"No, I can do it. I know you think I can't because... I don't understand _why _you need saving from me. But I do understand. I've always understood. I wasn't able to do it back then, but I can do it now."

"Doctor," she sighed. Then, "What's brought this on?"

"Growing up… and I mean both of us. Learning. Becoming unencumbered. Seeing everything through new eyes, after some time away. Including you."

"It's not nostalgia? Donna's gone, and tonight we've been trouble-shooting together again, and you miss it?"

He shook his head. "Ever since Sylvie and Tom walked into that restaurant, and Sylvie started doing her Sylvie thing, I had this feeling… _Martha shouldn't be involved in this._ I think that me being me, whenever a thought like that enters my mind, there's a little part of me that just automatically starts looking for ways to get you out of it. Even though, as far as Tom goes, you can more than hold your own, I know that.

"And then, when you called me to tell me you'd broken it off with him, I just… wanted you near me," he confessed. "I couldn't explain it to myself, but there it was. I couldn't have you going off to your sister's and not letting _me_ be the one to console you. For a little while tonight, I thought I wanted to save you from Tom, and then from the breakup with Tom, but now I think it's not about him at all."

"It's about you messing things up, back when we travelled together. You need to make it right."

"No. I don't need to rectify some fuck-up of mine. It's about the fact that I hurt you. No, hold on… that's not it either. It's about the fact that you're hurting. Full stop. You're hurting from way before Tom, and… you know how you said, when I hurt, you hurt? Well, it goes both ways, Martha."

"I felt that way because I was in love with you."

"I know."

And he just let that line lie there for a while. She had a worried, sceptical look on her face, and once again, scrutinised him.

"And you think you can do it?" she asked.

"I can. I want to. Let me try."

"After all this time? You want to try?"

"Yes."

For a long while, they just sat there and stared closely at one another. The Doctor offered his hand, and she took it. After a few long moments his free hand drifted to the side of her head, and he stroked her hair gently, then planted a kiss on her forehead. She moved into him, and he took her in both arms.

"Are you sure?" she whispered against his chest.

"I'm sure."

"Don't hurt me," she said, and he could hear that she was crying now. "There is no-one in the universe who could save me from that, if…"

"I won't," he interrupted. "I won't."

* * *

If Sylvie and Tom hadn't retired to _his_ flat, then he must have gone to her.

"Problem is," Martha said, pulling the door to the TARDIS shut behind her. "The only thing we know is that she's probably staying in a hotel. Or an inn. Or a B&B. Narrows it down, eh?"

"Didn't she say she was in town with some friends, on a girls' weekend?"

"She also said she was in town for a CPN conference," Martha said. "Pretty sure both were rubbish. She was covering for the fact that she'd come to London to see Tom. Or, I dunno… maybe she's never left! Besides, how does that help us?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. Just thought having all the facts sorted would be good." Then he clapped his hands. "So… we know that she came to _Okeanós _via the M4."

"True, so she must be staying out west a bit."

"And do you know what neighbourhood she lived in, when she was going to nursing school in London? Or was _supposedly_ going to nursing school in London?"

"She attended West London. Probably lived in that area."

"Don't you think it's fairly likely she'd stay in a neighbourhood she's familiar with?"

"If she were human, sure."

"Okay… don't you think it's fairly likely she'd want to stay somewhere that Tom might go looking for her?"

"Yes! Logically…"

"Logically," he said, throwing gears into place on the console. "Hotels in the vicinity of the University of West London, and the M4. An alien presence… go!"

The TARDIS' gave its signature sound, music to Martha's ears, and landed them literally _on campus_, of the University.

"There are a couple of hotels near here that are right on the M4," Martha said, staring at the screen at the map of the area. "Are you sure about this area?"

"I asked her to find an alien presence in the vicinity," he said. "A non-Earth-based entity is nearby. Other than us, of course."

"Could she just be homing in on something at the university?" Martha wondered, figuring it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that the university could be harbouring something alien in its laboratories.

"Could be," he said. "But it's a place to start.

"She could literally be biting his head off, Doctor."

"I know. But without a specific energy signature from Sylvie, or a species name or anything, I'm afraid asking the TARDIS to pinpoint a single entity much closer than this is a tall order."

"Okay," Martha said, patting the console. "I'm sorry. Shall we start just… what? Seeing if hotels in the area have a booking for Sylvie Caboche?"

"I guess so," the Doctor said. "We'll split up. I'll phone you if I get a hit, and vice versa."

"Okay," she said.

"If you find them, don't try to confront her alone," the Doctor warned as they walked out the TARDIS door, out onto the lawn.

"You either, yeah?"

"Okay," he grumbled. Though, secretly, he was a little glad to have someone back in his life who cared enough to _try_ and keep him out of danger. He was just glad to have _her,_ tentative though her consent to travel with him again may have been, and he looked forward to what was ahead.

Suddenly very motivated to get this Tom/Sylvie thing over with, he sprinted across the green and disappeared inside a hotel doorway. Martha watched, and then sprinted off the other direction, following suit.

* * *

**Well, you knew it was coming - how could it not? Martha's back with her "ex." **

**Leave a review and tell me what you thought of this chapter! And as always, thanks for reading. :-)**


	8. Chapter 8

**As you may remember, the Doctor and Martha had quite the revelatory chat on the sofa in her and Tom's flat... good things, hopefully, are on the horizon for them.**

**But first, find an alien disguised as a Frenchwoman (and her prey) in a city the size of London. They've narrowed down a neighborhood... maybe. Let's see...**

**I think you'll really enjoy this chapter!**

* * *

EIGHT

"Hi," said the Doctor to the plasticky-looking blonde at the front desk of the somewhat run-down Abbey Lodge Hotel. It looked like a fairly run-of-the-mill brick house, with a bit too much growth out front, and a garden wall that could use some careful hands.

"Hello," said the young woman. "What can you do for you?"

"I'm wondering if you've got a booking for a Sylvie Caboche," he said.

"I'm sorry, we can't disclose the names of our guests."

"She's French, attractive, medium height. She's got this weird two-tone, black-and-blonde hairstyle…"

"Doesn't sound familiar," she said.

"Have you had any French people check in in the last few days?"

"Not that I know of," she said. "Who are you, police?"

"Yes," he said, only then thinking to flash the psychic paper at her. "If you think of anything, just call this number."

* * *

"Hi," Martha said to the middle-aged gay man at the front desk of the Hotel Xanadu, a semi-posh hotel that looked a lot sleeker on the inside than it did from the outside.

"Hello," he said. "How can I help you?"

"Can I inquire as to a booking under the name Sylvie Caboche?"

"Oh, dear, it's not really common practice for us to reveal that information."

"I know, but…" Martha said, now feigning a worried frustration. "Oh, you don't understand. She's a friend of mine, and she had a few too many tonight, and she left with this bloke, and I really just want to know if she's okay."

"Really?"

"Yes," Martha said, trying to sound desperate and concerned. "It would mean a lot to me just to know that she's got back to her hotel and isn't being, you know, assaulted or anything… but I don't know where she's staying."

"Let me check," said the man. He winked at her. "Don't tell anyone, all right?"

Martha made a gesture of zipping her lips.

"I'm sorry, but we don't have anyone by that name here," said the man.

"What about Thomas Milligan?" she asked. "Er, that's her boyfriend… things are messy."

The man clicked at his keyboard for a few moments. "No luck. Sorry, love. I hope you find your friend."

* * *

"Hiya," said the Doctor, to the portly young man in a tweed blazer, emerging from the front office of the Grange Lodge Hotel. It was another house-turned-lodging, rather plain, but better-kept than the last place he'd been.

"Good evening, sir," said the man. "I'm afraid we're all booked up tonight."

The Doctor cut his losses, and flashed the psychic paper. "I'm Detective Inspector Smith, investigating, er, a series of murders."

"Murders?"

"Yes, mostly outside of town, but suffice it to say, my inquiry led me here. I'd like to ask you some questions."

"Erm, all right," said the man. "My name is Ryan Truly, I live at number forty-two…"

"Yeah, yeah… can we just…?" the Doctor asked gesturing for Mr. Truly to shut it. He took a deep breath and said, "Let me _ask questions _before you start talking, yeah?"

"Sorry, yeah."

"All right. First and foremost, have you booked anyone named Sylvie Caboche in the past few days?"

The man gave him a sour, yet not entirely uncooperative look. "This is an official investigation, is it?"

"It is, sir."

"And I have to answer?"

"Yes."

"One moment please," said the man reluctantly, but not_ terribly_ reluctantly. He went into the office, and the keyboard went _click-click_. "No results for that name. C-A-B-O-C-H-E, innit?"

"Yes," the Doctor affirmed. "What about Milligan? Tom Milligan?"

Again, Ryan Truly checked, but came up empty. "Sorry."

The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest. "Has anyone with a French-sounding accent checked in this past week?"

"No," said Ryan. "No French since March. I keep statistics."

"Any women about, black hair with blonde tips? Wide, wide mouth?"

"Doesn't ring a bell."

"All right, thank you," the Doctor said, concluding his interview.

* * *

"Hello?" Martha said, walking down the narrow entryway of the Ealing Guest House. "Hello?"

She heard noises coming from somewhere, then saw the adorable head of a grandmotherly woman peek out of a door Martha hadn't noticed existed.

"Hello!" said the woman. "Room for the night? Are you staying alone?" She walked just a bit stooped, though had a cartoonishly kindly face, and spoke with a thick Scottish brogue.

"No," said Martha. "I'm looking for someone."

"Who might you be looking for, then, dear?" asked the woman, coming out into the hallway.

"She's French," Martha said. "She's very striking… you'd know her because she has dark hair with a blonde broom effect at the ends."

"Is she a guest here?"

"That's what I came to find out," Martha said, trying to feign disappointment, rather than aggravated or terrified. "She's a friend of mine, only in town for a few days and we keep sort of missing each other, and now I've lost my mobile… just wanted to catch her up so we could have dinner or something before she leaves town again."

The woman furrowed. "I remember every guest I've had since 1981," she said. "Plenty of French girls, plenty of daft hairdos. But not in the last few days."

"Could you check your records?"

"She's not here, love," said the woman. "Are you sure you're in the right neighbourhood?"

* * *

Having each reported over the phone that they had each checked four places, and actually had nothing to report, they agreed to meet up at the Kings Arms, and look for Sylvie there.

"What do we do if she's not here?" asked Martha, standing outside, looking up into the bulky brick building.

"We rethink. Maybe try and narrow down another neighbourhood… something like that. But let's check it out first, eh?"

"Yeah," she sighed.

They stepped through the doors on the corner, into a pub. They asked after the inn, and the barman gestured to a staircase, which they mounted in silence. At the top, there was a clean-looking office with red carpet, and a grey-haired man in a blazer sitting at a desk.

"Hello, you two," said the man. "Checking in?"

"Erm, no," said the Doctor, flashing the psychic paper. "We're investigating a series of murders. We'll need to see your guest register, please."

"How is our hotel involved in a series of murders?"

"We're hunting down a suspect," the Doctor sighed. "Your guest register?"

"Do you have a warrant."

"Yeah," the Doctor said, sighing heavily again. He replaced the psychic paper in his pocket, then pulled it out again. The grey-haired man inspected it, then picked up a wide book off the desk and said, "Here you are. Tea?"

"Yes, thanks," the Doctor said. "Mine's black, hers is white with sugar."

"What?" Martha asked, as the man left the room, promising to return in a few minutes. "That's now how I take my tea!"

"It got him to leave the room, didn't it?"

"Oh."

From there, they began to examine the guest register. They found that 4 guests from France had checked in at different points over the last seven days, though they had no real idea of how long Sylvie had been in town.

"What if she didn't tell the truth about her nationality?" Martha asked.

"She's not French, Martha," the Doctor reminded her. "She's not even from this planet."

"Right," said Martha. "So then, why would we assume she's using the name Sylvie Caboche?"

"Did you describe her to the people you spoke to in other hotels?"

"Yes," Martha said. "She's pretty distinctive… reckoned if the name didn't ring a bell…"

"Me too," the Doctor said.

The Doctor stuck his head through the door which the grey-haired man had used to access, presumably, the kitchen, and found… the grey-haired man preparing tea in a kitchen.

"Sorry to bother you," he said. "But the person we're looking for might very well be using an assumed name – wondering if you've seen her. She's attractive, French, with a hairstyle that's sort of half-black and half-blonde. She might have left the place tonight wearing a very short black lace dress."

"I hate to disappoint you," said the man. "But I've been on holiday for two weeks. I just got back to work about an hour ago."

"All right, thank you," the Doctor sighed. "Don't bother with the tea – we need to move on. Sorry."

Martha and the Doctor descended the stairs, and exited the Kings Arms through the corner door, thanking the barman. They stood on the kerb, and looked at each other with exhaustion and despair.

"Now what?" Martha said. "Just wait for Tom's face to turn up on the news?"

"No, now we regroup," he said. "Let's discuss what else we know about Sylvie, and see if we can't…"

That was when they heard a thumping sound, which stopped after a few beats.

"What was that?" asked Martha.

"It came from up there," the Doctor said, pointing at the window of the first-floor, corner suite in the Kings Arms Hotel. As they stared, they both realised that the window was open, as the drapes inside were being blown by the breeze.

And then the thumping started again, only now it was insistent. Rhythmic. Rapid.

And a few seconds later, the sounds of human interaction began. High-pitched cries from a female voice, low grunts from a male. No words, however… as if any were needed.

Martha's eyes went wide as saucers. "That's Tom," she said, her voice flat and far away.

"What?" the Doctor asked, his face suddenly a bit confused, a bit frantic. "How can you tell from a bunch of grunts?"

Amid the sounds of two people rattling a headboard just above their heads, Martha gave him a look of tedium, as if to ask, _Really?_

He realised the answer to his question all at once and raised his eyebrows. "Ohhh," he said. "That's… disturbing. We're really going to have to scrub out your brain after this is over, aren't we?"

"Yes. Please."

"But the good news is, he's still alive! Come on!"

He took off running back through the pub, and she followed. They sprinted through the pub door and up the stairs. Martha shouted, "Do you think tonight's the night she's going to take his head?"

"I don't know – want to risk it?" the Doctor shouted back. When they got to the red office on the first floor, he turned around and said in his machine-gun-like fashion, "If nothing else, she's manipulated him free of you, and available for herself. She's got her hooks in again any way you look at it, and one of these days, she's going to almost literally eat him alive. Now follow me!" And he ran again.

That was when the grey-haired man stepped out from behind the kitchen door. "Detective Inspector! What's happening?"

Others began to pop their heads out through the doors up and down the hall, wondering the same thing.

"Get back in your rooms, lock the doors and stay there!" the Doctor ordered them.

When a few refused, he handed Martha the sonic screwdriver, and said, "Go in. I'm taking care of this part. Can't risk…"

"Got it," she said, taking the gadget out of his hands.

The Doctor began to speak to, and try to lull people, including the grey-haired man.

All at once, in the next few seconds, the door at the end of the hall was open, Martha was stumbling in upon a very noisy man and woman.

And the man who stopped grunting at that moment, and sat back on his haunches in surprise, turned and faced her was, indeed, Tom Milligan.

Bedsheets were loosely draped round his mid-section, but that was the only hint of covering on his entire body. The suit he'd worn to dinner was strewn all over the room, and Martha spied Sylvie's black lace minidress wadded up just inside the door, along with a few stringy underthings.

His face registered not just surprise, but utter horror.

"Martha! What the fuck are you doing here?" he yelled.

Sylvie sat up at that point, and attempted to coax Tom back down on top of her by pulling hard at his jowls. "Ignore her, Tom… keep going! Finish!"

"Wha- finish?" Tom spat at her, wriggling free. "You're bloody bonkers, you!"

"Tom, get away from her," Martha warned. "She's not what she seems!"

"Are _you _bonkers now too?" he shouted at Martha.

"I'm absolutely serious, Tom," Martha said. "She's dangerous. Just… back away. Come with me. Now."

"What? Why?" Tom asked.

"Tom, _mon amour_, do not engage," Sylvie counselled silkily, now up on her knees on the bed, totally nude, hair dishevelled. "She is clearly jealous and unhinged. Give me what I want now…" Again, she took him by the jowls and tried to turn his attention back to her. When his head wouldn't budge, she leaned round and planted a very juicy, open-mouthed kiss on his lips.

Again, he squirmed away, and this time, stood up from the bed, bringing the sheet with him. Now, he was in the same state as Alain, when they'd first seen him exiting the hotel in Nîmes.

Sylvie took her time standing up out of bed, still, of course, spectacularly naked. Eventually, she located Tom's blue dress shirt from the floor, and put it on.

"Back away? Come with you? What is this? Martha, you were quite keen to let me go," he said. "I heard you – it was just a couple of hours ago. You said you didn't want to see me again, even long enough to collect your things from our flat! And now you've tracked me down in Sylvie's hotel room?"

"Tom…" Martha tried.

"I'm sorry," Tom continued. "But I can't handle _another_ obsessive ex! For Christ's sake, how the hell did you even find me? What have you got, a tracker on my phone?"

The Doctor walked in then.

Sylvie gasped, and stumbled backward when she saw him, knocking over the lamp on the night stand in the process.

"You?" Tom asked, incredulous, pointing at the Doctor. "What the fuck? Seriously! Seriously, what the fuck?"

"You need to come with us, now," the Doctor said firmly to Tom. To Sylvie, he said, "You need to stay in your corner, or you'll have to deal with me. Do you understand what that means?"

"Don't speak to her that way," Tom insisted. "What is wrong with you?"

The Doctor ignored him, and continued to speak to Sylvie. "If you leave now, leave Tom alone, leave this planet alone altogether, then I won't follow you. I'm giving you that chance. Take it."

Sylvie was still pulling away from him, her bum now parked on top of the sideways lamp.

Tom stepped forward and placed one hand on the Doctor's shoulder. "You're going to have to leave, mate. Let's go. Martha, you too."

The Doctor threw off Tom's grip, and growled, "Tom, for God's sake, if you're not going to come with us, at least step aside and let me talk to her! We are here to help you… and her. Both of you! _She is dangerous_!"

"I know that!" Tom spat. "But she's all I've got now!"

"What do you mean _you know that_?" Martha asked.

Tom exhaled heavily with exasperation. He now moved around the room in an animated rant, still holding one hand behind his back, keeping the bedsheet strategically in-place. "You know I do! We _just_ talked about this, Martha! She's toxic, and obsessional, sometimes mean, violent, doesn't care about anyone's needs, but for some goddamn reason, she's under my skin! I'm helpless, and can't say no to her, which I completely realise cannot end well, it just can't."

"That's not what we mean by _dangerous…"_ Martha attempted.

But he ignored her. "I _tried_ to get free of her, and you saw how well that worked! I found you, who are, for all intents and purposes, the perfect woman for me… and what did she do? She wrecked it for both of us. She uprooted everything I tried to cultivate with you, poisoned everything that was us. And let's face it, she's poisoned everything that is me, as well. So can't you just leave me the hell alone, and let me wallow in my misery? Let me have my ill-advised shag with my ex, so I can go ahead and start spending the next six months moaning over how she ruined the best thing that ever happened to me, and asking myself what it all means, and how am I going to get out of this bloody rut I'm in with her?"

There was a heavy silence in the room for a few moments, and then the Doctor addressed Sylvie yet again. "What's it going to be Sylvie? Get out of here now, or face me?"

Sylvie continued to stare at the Doctor with shock and fear, and then she finally stood back up. "You know what? To hell with you," she said. "To hell with all of this!"

And her whole head seemed almost to turn inside out as her mouth opened as wide as a duffel bag, and her face became grey, fish-like, and totally inhuman. With the quickness of a cat, she leapt over the bed and took a chomp at Tom's head.

Fortunately, he was just a tad faster, and he fell to the floor and rolled out of the way.

By the time he sat back up and looked about the room again, "Sylvie" was back, walking about the room on her incredibly lovely legs, looking oddly sexy in Tom's oversized shirt.

"Holy fuck!" Tom shouted. "What… what…"

"We tried to tell you!" Martha insisted.

She wondered what would happen if she launched herself forward now, and tried to subdue Sylvie. The Doctor had said something earlier in the evening about how Sylvie must've known she couldn't overpower Tom, and that was why she tried to asphyxiate him. Perhaps this was because in human form, she had the strength of a human female? Martha wished she had asked for more details…

"Give me the sonic," the Doctor said.

Martha obliged.

He took two steps toward Sylvie and aimed the device at her. It buzzed, and the Doctor said, "She's registering as human, probably because they just…" and he gestured at the bed.

Sylvie laughed, and once again, her head became the head of the alien, and she went after Tom with enormous jaws, and a growl. Tom rolled away, and this time, Sylvie's human guise did not return.

"Oh, hello," the Doctor said, as he aimed the sonic at her in these moments, and the frequency changed. "Here we go… Niola Galaxy… Sabatroom!"

"Shut up!" the Sylvie-alien screamed at him. "No one is afraid of you! No-one!"

"Oh, well, that's a big load of rubbish," he said, chuckling. He aimed the sonic at her again, and this time, he said, "Ha – trusty screwdriver! Opener of doors, reader of species, decoder of energy signatures."

"You're going to die, Time Lord!" she shouted at him "As soon as I'm done with this one on the floor, you're next!"

"You know who I am," the Doctor mused. "I'm kind of impressed, actually."

"You're not the only one who can decode energy signatures," the alien hissed at him.

The two of them were now circling each other in the room, like caged tigers. Martha had helped Tom up off the floor, and they were now holding onto one another in the corner, attempting to inch toward the exit. The Doctor was trying to drive Sylvie _away_ from the exit, distracting her by talking to her.

"Oh, I know," he said. "Decoding energy signatures is your M.O., isn't it? Getting a good energetic shag out of a guy, then tracking his scent all over the globe. Very sinister… bit primitive, but well… humans don't know the difference, do they?"

"Indeed not," said the Sylvie monster.

One of her huge eyes now turned and fixated on Tom. Just in time, Martha leapt in front of him, and Sylvie's mouth closed over her shoulder, which caused bleeding, but much as Jean-Marc was not interested in Martha's head, Sylvie was not either.

"Leave him alone!" Martha shouted. "Just get off this planet you… bloody succubus!"

The monster laughed. "A very _à propos_ word!"

"Tom! Go!" Martha said, pushing her former fiancé toward the door.

"No!" screamed the monster, and she made another lunge for his head, as he stumbled.

He tripped over his sheet, and landed on the floor, just as Sylvie did as well, and she took a swipe, opening a vein. The Doctor had got in the way again, landing more or less on top of Tom, and ensuring that at least he did not lose his head.

The sheet was now spattered with dark red stains, and Tom was clutching at his throat. The wound was not as bad as that of Gregoire, but still, he was going to need attention soon. Fortunately, he knew how to minimise loss of blood himself.

But they were now very near the door. The Doctor stepped over Tom, and grabbed him by the feet, dragging him out the door.

"Dr. Jones, I'm going to need a medic," he said.

"Right," Martha said, leaping out the door as well.

The Sylvie alien stood angrily in the middle of the room, ravenous, drooling, panting.

"He can't run from me," she growled. "I can track him. You know it. He's mine. He's helpless to me. I will have his head."

The Doctor approached her once again. "You say you know me. If that's the case, you know what might happen to you if you follow us. One last chance. Leave this planet. Go home. Live your life."

She shrunk back down into her Sylvie form.

"But of course, _mon ami_," she said, once again looking stunning and winking at the Doctor. "Anything you want."

* * *

**I hope you're smiling widely, and also asking yourself, "Whaaa…" **

**Don't forget to leave a review and let me know! **


	9. Chapter 9

NINE

Martha carried Tom's legs, and the Doctor carried his torso, and they made their way down to the street, ignoring all questions along the way, from the grey-haired man, other guests, pub patrons…

As they moved away from the building, they looked back up at the first-floor window which they had noticed sitting open, when they'd first heard Tom and Sylvie exchanging energy signatures. They saw her sitting prettily, looking through the screen, waving at them as if she hadn't just tried to behead one of them.

The TARDIS was parked on the grounds of the university, which was a bit of a hike away. In any case, it was too far to carry a largeish man and his strategically-placed bedsheet. They found a skip round the corner, out of sight of the Kings Arms, and the Doctor pulled Tom and Martha behind it, telling her, "Stay with Tom. I'm going to go get our transport. I'll see you in less than five minutes."

Martha sat down on the pavement, and the Doctor laid Tom's head in her lap. He then took off running toward the university.

"Let me see, Tom," she said, and he let her, taking his fingers away from the wound.

For the second time that night, Martha found herself pressing her bare fingers to a bleeding throat wound, though this one, as she already knew, was not nearly as bad. This one was not spurting, and was, in fact, nowhere near the jugular.

"It's not so bad," she said. "There was a spray when she first got you because of the violence of the blow, but…"

"I know," he croaked. "I'll be okay. I could've probably walked down the stairs. Sorry."

"It's all right," she said. She studied his face. He was staring blankly at the sky. "You're in shock."

He didn't answer.

She gently laid his head down on the pavement, pressed his own fingers against his throat wound once more, and moved toward his feet. She stood, elevating them with her hands.

"Tom, are you cold? Tom? Oi!"

"I'm not cold."

"You feel light-headed at all?"

"No."

"Do you…"

"Martha, I'm fine. I'm not in shock. I'm just… I'm just going to need a few minutes."

"Can you walk on your own when the Doctor gets back?"

"The Doctor?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "The guy in the suit."

"John?"

"Well... yeah, I guess."

"Yes, I can walk. You can put my feet down." She obliged, then sat down on the cement beside him to wait. At least a minute's silence passed before he said, "Martha, what is she?"

"I don't know all the details, Tom," she answered. "The Doctor would be better-equipped to answer that question."

"Was _any_ part of that episode an hallucination?"

"I would love to say it was."

He was silent for a long time, and he stared at the sky. When he spoke, he said, "I feel like huge chunks of my life have been a lie."

"Don't blame you, mate."

"Mate?" he asked. "Is that what I am now?"

She sighed heavily again, and paused before saying, "Yes."

"Even though…"

"Yes."

"But she's a monster, Martha. Literally a monster."

"I know," Martha said.

"Do you think she had some kind of special _thrall_ over me? Something… inhuman?"

"Yes, I do think so. And I now realise that none of what happened with her was your fault."

Another silence hung heavily in the air between them, while he waited for her to elaborate. She knew he was waiting for it, but she said no more.

So Tom filled in the blanks. "But you still feel you can't be with me, don't you?"

"You know that thing about the red and white paint?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"I think it's true," she said.

"I guess I could see that. Maybe."

"Besides, I think we both know that the writing was on the wall anyway," she sighed.

"We do?"

"Come on, Tom. Once we get Sylvie out of your life for good, are you _sure_ I'm the one you really want?"

That was when they heard the TARDIS gears, which forced his eyes wide open. The blue box appeared as it does, seemingly out of nowhere, less than ten feet from where they were. Tom looked at it as though he wanted to run screaming from it.

Martha helped him get to his feet, since both of his hands were occupied with keeping his sheet in place, and depressing his wound. When the Doctor emerged, he tried to help as well.

"I'm fine, thanks," Tom said, refusing his assistance. Then he looked the Doctor over, and asked, "Okay… who the hell _are _you?"

"Let's just get you bandaged up, yeah?" the Doctor practically whispered, ushering Tom in to the TARDIS.

The mild-mannered, tragically flawed paediatrician stepped inside, and did what everyone else does (gaped at it, asking a series of disjointed questions), and said what everyone else says (it's bigger on the inside).

Martha and the Doctor stepped in after him, and shut the door, locking it behind them.

"Dr. Jones, please tend to the patient, and I will get us out of this neighborbood so you-know-who doesn't find us before we're ready."

Martha led a further shell-shocked Tom past the console and down the hallway toward the infirmary. There, she gave him a healthy dose of ibuprofen to slow the bleeding, cleaned the site and injected a local anaesthetic. They then waited for Tom's throat to become numb, and then Martha carefully administered seven stitches to the crooked, jagged wound.

During this time, Tom just let her work; he made no suggestions, nor did he ask any questions about where the hell they were.

As Martha finished up, the Doctor came in.

"I plugged her energy signature into the TARDIS' data banks. I think we can find the nest."

"Nest," Tom echoed. "There's a nest?"

"Yes, she and her kind… they'll have a nest somewhere. Probably more than one. There will be some sort of heart, or generator… a power centre, something that networks them, and helps them to store all of the energy they leech from people. The TARDIS had some info on her species, the illustrious Cervovore, and I've seen similar things before."

"Sounds daft."

"Well, after what you've seen tonight…" the Doctor began.

"Nothing will ever sound daft again," Tom finished.

"How do you feel?" the Doctor asked him.

"Fine, considering," Tom said. "Because I've got an excellent physician tending to me."

The Doctor looked a bit more closely at Tom's wound, and then said, "There were no arterial spurts… should've known he'd be all right. Nice job, Dr. Jones."

"Thanks," she said, cleaning up the room.

"Now, Dr. Milligan, do you feel up to helping us take down your ex-girlfriend, who also happens to be a Cervovore?"

"Sure," shrugged Tom. "What else have I got to do tonight?"

"Good, because I'm going to need you."

"What do I need to do?"

"Not much," the Doctor said. "Just do what I tell you, when things get hairy."

"I don't like the sound of that."

"Yeah. I didn't particularly like saying it," the Doctor replied, a bit surprised.

"Er… what do I call you?" asked Tom.

"Just Doctor," answered the Doctor.

"Just… Doctor?"

"Yeah."

"Not John?"

"No, that's not my name at all. It's an alias."

"An alias for what?"

"For when I need it. Like when I'm having dinner with people who don't know me."

"Did Martha know that all along, when you were together?"

"Yes."

"Doctor… surname?"

"Er, I don't really have one."

"Why not?"

"You really want to go into this now?"

"Are you… like Sylvie?" Tom asked, sheepishly, like a child.

"I'm not a Cervovore," the Doctor confessed. "But I'm not human either."

"Did Martha know _that?_"

"Yes."

"So, what are you?"

"Tom…" Martha began, intending to discourage this conversational path.

"Actually, you know what? Tell me later. I've had enough for now," Tom said to the Doctor.

"Good man," the Doctor said, patting Tom's shoulder.

"Er, I hate to ask this," Tom then said uncomfortably. "But have you got anything I can wear?"

"Yeah, I'll get you something," the Doctor answered, moving toward the door. "Been doing that a lot tonight. Be right back."'

As she cleaned up her work, Martha was reminded of Alain, sitting in the hotel lobby in Nîmes, wearing the Doctor's clothing. "Doctor? If you care about me at all, you will find something other than pieces of pin-striped suit for him, yeah?"

The Doctor smiled very, very slightly, and saluted her before leaving the room.

* * *

Martha and the Doctor waited for about five minutes in the console room for Tom to emerge wearing actual clothes.

Eventually, he came through the archway in a pair of black jeans and a green v-neck jumper, with heavy black boots on his feet. The white sheet from the hotel room was folded up, and he carried it against his hip.

"That's a bit better," he said. "Thanks for the duds, mate."

The Doctor looked him over. "No problem. Just keep them. They no longer suit me."

"So, what now?" Martha asked.

The Doctor pointed to the sonic screwdriver, which was currently plugged into the controls. "We use this to track down Sylvie and the rest of the wacky gang of Cervovores."

"And what? Kill them?" asked Tom, a bit afraid of the answer.

"No," the Doctor said. "Ideally, we force them to go back to their own planet and regroup, then I can intervene there, minimise the risk to humanity."

Tom nodded, and swallowed hard, even though it hurt him to do so. Martha could read relief on his face. Even though Sylvie was literally a carnivorous fiend, he still didn't want to see her killed.

"You do have a plan, right?" Martha asked.

"Yes," the Doctor said. "These creatures are a bit abstract, and _energy_ is what gives them their _oomph_. I'm hoping I can use that against them. Which reminds me, "Tom, it might be the last thing you want to do right now – or, I don't know, maybe not. But I'm going to need you to let Sylvie… _engage_ you, a bit more."

"Engage me?"

"I think she's going to make a last-ditch attempt to get you worked up. Aroused. I need you to let her."

"Jesus," Tom groaned. "Why?"

"Because it might be the key to her undoing," the Doctor answered. "If I'd been thinking, I would have done things differently in your hotel room, but as it stands, we're going to need you to build up a bit of… energy."

"How far do I let her get?"

"I'll let you know. I won't let her take your head, don't worry."

"There's a sentence I hoped I'd never hear anyone say to me in earnest," Tom muttered.

"What do I do?" Martha asked.

"I'm not sure yet," the Doctor told her. "I don't know what they'll do when you step out of the TARDIS. I don't know if they'll come after you or not. Tom sure, but you… I wish I had a better answer for you."

"I'll improvise," she agreed.

"Good, because I'm going to need to stay inside the TARDIS. At least at the beginning, sorry," he said. Then he sighed heavily, and asked, "Okay, kids, ready?" Not waiting for an answer, he threw the gears into place, and the TARDIS did its thing.

When it stopped, Tom asked, "What just happened?"

"Well, if all went to plan, we should have found the nest," the Doctor said, pulling the computer screen round to where he could see it. "Oh. Oh! Wow."

"What?" Martha asked.

The Doctor switched over to camera view, and pointed at the screen and invited her to look. They had materialised about a hundred yards from the arena in Nîmes, on a different part of the promenade that ran in front of the hotel where Gregoire had died. They could see the hotel in the distance, and could also plainly see that police and other emergency personnel were gathered there.

"Oh. Wow," Martha said, echoing the Doctor's sentiments. "This explains a lot."

"It does," Tom mused, recognising exactly where they were. This town had been Tom's home base during his residency, during which he'd lived with Sylvie. "So their… _nest _is right here on the promenade?"

"Actually, the nest is underground," the Doctor answered. "What you're seeing is the view on the surface, right above us."

"So, you've brought us right into the nest?" Martha asked, looking at the Doctor with a deadpan expression.

"Yep."

"Fantastic."

* * *

Two human doctors stepped out of a blue box, parked under a promenade in Nîmes. Around them, they saw myriad electrical equipment, and a quick glance about told them two things: 1) they were in the electrical room that ran the carpark below the promenade, and 2) at least for now, they did not have to deal with a whole swarm of Cervovores.

There were only three. Two Martha recognised, not to mention their hostage.

"Alain!" Martha cried out, upon seeing him. She'd spied the Doctor's blue pinstriped trousers first, then realised that a very distressed man, whom she knew, was wearing them.

Martha then looked at the handsome, shirtless man who had Alain by the throat.

"Hello, Jean-Marc," she said.

Jean-Marc bowed slightly, and said, "Hello again."

"Sylvie," Martha said to the attractive humanoid standing before her in what she recognised as the crisp blue dress shirt Tom had worn to dinner tonight, over bare legs. "Always a pleasure."

"Indeed," said Sylvie.

"And who might you be?" she asked the third Cervovore in the room, who was approximately five feet tall, bulbous like a frog, and had a head like a giant fish.

It spoke with its enormous mouth, and turned itself so that it could scrutinise the newcomers with its large, dead eye. Its voice was raspy, and it had a juicy lisp. "I haven't decided yet. I'm thinking François," it said.

"Good choice," Martha said. "Classic, unpretentious, very, very French."

"_François _is our newest arrival on this planet,"Sylvie said. "As if you couldn't tell that by looking at him. Jean-Marc and I have had so much success, the High Senate on our home planet decided to send another emissary to this part of Earth."

"What about India?" Martha asked.

"India?" Tom wondered.

Sylvie smiled. "Ah, she's clever, Tom. Though, I think in this case, it is borrowed cleverness, yes? That's something your Time Lord would have told you. You're a mere _doctor._ He's the universe-hopper, the trouble-shooter…"

"Yes, that's true, I did find out from him," Martha said, with no compunction. "Now, are you going to answer the question?"

"We have small cells of emissaries all over this planet," Sylvie said, matter-of-factly. "India and France have had the most success, though India has brought some attention to itself of late, has had to pull out. They've relocated."

"To where?" Martha asked.

"Nice try, Dr. Jones," Sylvie said, with a laugh.

"Sylvie, what is this?" Tom asked. "What have you been doing to me for the past… how-ever-many years?"

"Giving you mind-blowing, eye-crossing pleasure, my love, and don't try to deny it," she replied.

"Oh, I wouldn't dare," he said, quite earnestly.

She continued, "And your fervent energy, over time, has helped me hold this form. Just as Gregoire's fervent energy has helped Jean-Marc hold his form. Though now that Gregoire is dead, and Jean-Marc has failed to make a harvest…"

"A harvest. Does that mean _taking his head_?" Tom asked, raising his voice. "Like what you were planning on doing to me?"

She stuck out her formidable bottom lip. "I might've known that infernal Time Lord would've told you everything."

"What the hell for?" Tom shouted at her. "All that time, you pretended to be in love with me, infatuated with me, but you were planning on _decapitating_ me?"

"Yes," she said. "If you've got another way for me to hold this humanoid form forever, please let me know."

"Hold… forever? But… why?" he asked.

"You wouldn't understand," she dismissed. "Something tells me that Martha might, but… well, really, we'll just have to wait for the Time Lord, won't we?"

"Jesus, Sylvie!"

"I don't know what you're complaining about, Tom," she said. "You're lucky! You and Gregoire both! There is certainly more than one way to gather energy signatures from humans!"

"There is?"

"Yes," she answered, laughing. "The other ways are… unpleasant. And violent. And they attract attention while they are happening, even before the final harvest. Sex is… well, fun, and ironically, nice and clean, in the long-run."

"Wow."

"Of course there are other ways," Sylvie exclaimed, still laughing. "How do you think _François _is going to get his first dose of humanity? Certainly he won't have any sexual magnetism until he's done a bit of a transformation…"

"Which reminds me…" the being now known as 'François' said.

"Ah, yes," interjected Jean-Marc. "We haven't forgotten, friend. Just wait until she's done toying with them."

"Oh, I'm done," Sylvie said. "Jean-Marc, are you good?"

"I'm good," he answered, licking Alain's neck sensually. Alain shivered and shuddered a bit, in disgust and probably, Martha reckoned, some conflicted lust.

"François, Dr. Jones is yours," Sylvie declared. "And you, Tom, my love… what do you say? What more go, for old time's sake? After all, we never got to finish our little tryst earlier. You must be _bursting_ with energy by now."

Tom said nothing, but he didn't resist as she moved toward him predatorially, and shoved him up against the TARDIS. Immediately, she began stroking the front of his trousers, and his head went back against the wooden surface behind him, in a head-swimming reverie, almost against his will. He was aware that he could stop her, but the Doctor had predicted this, and had asked him to let her do it, and for some reason, he was inclined to listen.

Martha thought fast. What were the other methods of energy-transfer the Doctor had mentioned? Something about transferring to a different planet for interface? Oh, and some sort of advanced energy converter that would attract the attention of CERN if it ever were to show itself on Earth, and of course…

That was when she heard the loud crackling sound, and the piercing scream. Mercifully, they both only lasted about three seconds.

Successive electrocution. That was the other method.

Alain had been struck to the floor by a prod from Jean-Marc with a long, wand-like apparatus, and was lying on the floor in pain.

"You're no Gregoire," the Cervovore snarled at the unfortunate man. "In fact, in some ways, I think I might like you better. It's a pity that you and I won't have the opportunity to cultivate a relationship, isn't it?"

"Alain!" Martha called out, and instinctively, she began to move toward him to help.

But François' webby hands closed round Martha's arm and dragged her sideways. She was surprised enough to have been pulled off her feet. He threw her to the ground beside Alain, and she braced for what was coming.

This time, when the loud crackling shock shot across the space, she could feel it through her bones, all of her cells, and hear it inside her head, along with her own scream.

She also heard Tom's harried voice cut across the noise, calling her name in a panic.

Again, mercifully, the electrical pulse only lasted about three seconds, but that was enough to let her know that she didn't care to ever feel it again. Though she knew she couldn't be that lucky, because the Doctor had made it clear that _Tom _was the one who was needed first, and something about the current state of affairs, with Sylvie's hand down his trousers, was the key to her undoing.

And indeed, the last thing Martha saw before the next shockwave hit her was Sylvie sinking to her knees, ready to perform for Tom one last time, and a brown pinstriped arm reaching out through the TARDIS' door, grabbing the front of Tom's jumper in its fist, and yanking him into the blue box, before the silky Cervovore could do any more damage.

Sylvie was left kneeling, rather nonplussed at first, and then she began screaming in anger. She banged on the TARDIS door, but it was locked, and its occupants were already engaged in her ruin.

* * *

**A lot is happening. Drop me a line, let me know what you think of these "happenings!" (Most of you have been oddly silent of late... why not take this opportunity to get chatty again? It would make my week!)**


	10. Chapter 10

**Last thing we saw was a pin-striped arm, yanking Tom Milligan into the TARDIS, rescuing him from the wiles of the ever-creepy Sylvie. What now?**

* * *

TEN

"Jesus, mate," Tom breathed as the Doctor yanked him through the door, and locked it against the angry, piercing railing of Sylvie on the other side. "I wasn't sure how long you were going to make me go. Another minute and I'd have…"

"I know that you'd have, but you didn't," the Doctor said. "That's kind of the point. Now, don't move. I know it sounds daft, but just stay in that frame of mind."

"What frame of mind?"

"The… you know… aroused frame," the Doctor said, eyes wide with discomfort, and a degree of alarm. "Just brace yourself, let it take you."

"You want me to…"

"To?"

"You know!"

"Oh," the Doctor said, surprised. "You mean, finish what she started?"

"Yes!"

The Doctor thought about this. "Actually, it's not the worst idea," he said, moving round the console now. "You can pretend I'm not here."

"No I can't!"

"Fine, just close your eyes, and think of Sylvie. Just a minute ago, what she was going to do…"

"Okay, but… why?" Tom whined.

"Because, it's the easiest way to get your energy signature," the Doctor said. "There's a reason why Sylvie's kind's M.O. is the mind-bending shag. It gets your temperature up, your adrenaline is high, you're on the verge of bursting, _of course_ they can absorb your energy easily. And so can my sonic screwdriver."

"Ugh. Fine," Tom sighed. Reluctantly, he turned away from the Doctor, and did as asked, and after a few moments, the Doctor aimed the sonic at him.

"Oh, she's good," the Doctor said, listening to the high-pitched buzzing of the device. "She's got you glowing like Alpha Centauri."

"Yeah, that's her _spécialité,"_ Tom muttered. "Been on-edge all night."

While Martha had been talking with Sylvie outside, buying time, the Doctor had studied the nest, using nothing more than the TARDIS' camera system. He'd seen the electrical equipment all around the room, that probably ran the lights and unmanned kiosks for the carpark adjacent. In that mess, he'd spied a panel on the wall that definitely did not belong on this planet. He'd expected to find a dome-shaped, bulbous, perhaps pulsating, red power centre. But it was, in fact, disguised, compressed, and camouflaged in the electrical-works, so that the average human happening through the room would not notice it.

He also saw that there were two wand-like apparatuses that were connected to the power centre. He knew what they were being used for, but he tried not to think about it... for now. He'd get to them in time.

And just before pulling Tom through the door, he had instructed the TARDIS to dial into that power centre, interface its energy, and stand by.

* * *

The Doctor had left her and Alain to the electrical devices of the Cervovores. Chaos was ensuing all around her – she and Alain had each received another shock, and another one was coming in a few seconds.

For a minute or two, Sylvie had been lurking about the blue box, trying to figure it out, kicking and punching at the door, and/or trying to find another way in. Suddenly, though, she began scream once more and bang her fists against the wood.

And when the next shock came, a split second beforehand, Martha saw the TARDIS begin to glow. Her body then experienced the expected sharp pain and spasm, but then, after a second, miraculously, the pain abated and was replaced by warmth, and calm. It was a familiar sensation… the TARDIS' energy (and something else) was interfering with the electrical shock.

And then the whole sensation retreated, and she could hear Alain nearby, panting, and asking "What the hell…?"

The TARDIS was still aglow, as were the shock-wands that Jean-Marc and François were using, and the wires connecting them to a panel on the wall. Not surprisingly, the panel was glowing, too.

Sylvie turned and looked all of the glowing, then began to scream, "Noooooo!"

Her male counterparts reacted in very much the same way.

Martha noticed absently that François was now a six-foot-tall, beautifully-sculpted, naked man, no longer the creature they had met upon arrival. He had now shocked her two-and-a-half times…shocking her must have been enough to give him at least a temporary humanoid form. And of course, this form had to be attractive enough to gather energy signatures from some unsuspecting, long-term object of his relentless lust…

Sylvie's panic reached a fever pitch as she, herself began to glow, and when this happened, she went to her knees again, groaning in pain and protest. Something like lightning seemed to shoot through her, and suddenly, it all stopped. When the glow retreated, she looked exactly like François had looked a few minutes ago: short, globular, frog-like, enormous-mouthed, head like a fish.

_This _was what the Doctor had needed Tom for! He had duplicated Tom's energy signature while he was aroused, so he could us it to leech Tom's particular energy out of the Cervovores' power centre! Sylvie's humanoid form was being held steady with Tom's energy – without this, she was powerless, and had to revert to square-one.

When Sylvie stood up and realised the state of affairs, she screamed even louder, and threw herself against the TARDIS door, threatening both the Doctor and Tom, swearing to have both of their heads. Martha noticed as Sylvie slammed her body into the wood that the Cervovore's skin was practically liquid. She was a bit surprised that François had initially had the corporeal integrity to even hold electrical wand steady enough to…

And then another shock came. She screamed in pain and surprise, and could hear Alain beside her, doing the same thing. The next shock came in quick succession…

Jean-Marc and François were seeing what had happened to Sylvie, and were panicking.

Another shock. Then another!

"Careful!" the Sylvie-thing shouted at them. "Humans are frail! If you do that too much, you'll kill them before you're ready to harvest!"

And thus, the shocks stopped for a few moments, and Martha and Alain had time to catch their breaths. Martha reached out for him, and he took her hand. When he looked at her, she could see his nose bleeding. She now realised hers was as well.

"You okay?" she mouthed.

"I think so," he whispered.

The Doctor and Tom stumbled out of the TARDIS then.

Jean-Marc and François charged them both, and what ensued was something that Martha had never seen the Doctor nor Tom engage in before: a full-on, knock-down, drag-out, punch-up. She could see well enough that the "good" guys were trying to get to her and Alain, but the "bad" guys were not about to let them.

Martha took the opportunity to try and move. She crawled over to Alain.

"Alain, pinch up here," she said to him, pinching her own bleeding nose, as a demonstration. He got up on his knees, and obeyed. Then she asked him, "Have you got any numbness anywhere?"

"No," he said, turning his head awkwardly to see her.

"Tingling?"

"No," he answered, after seemingly assessing how he felt.

"Can you see all right? Any spotty vision?"

"My vision is fine."

"And you can hear me all right?"

"Yeah, if you don't count the…"

With that, Jean-Marc's body came crashing into him, knocking him sideways onto the floor again. Tom had managed to get the advantage, having wound up, and given the humanoid a swift, hard kick to the midsection, toppling him. Tom _should_ have used this moment to grab Alain by the arm, get him to his feet, and away from the fray. Instead, he looked back and forth between Alain and Martha, for a crucial two seconds of indecisive delay.

In the end, Tom went for Alain, but he was a second too late, and was struck down. Jean-Marc grabbed his ankle as he dived forward, and his head hit the concrete floor with a thud.

"Ow! Shit!" he cried out.

The sickening sound the impact had made was a trigger for Martha. "Tom! Oh my God!"

"What?" the Doctor cried out, picking himself up off the floor after being elbowed in the chest, hard, by François. "What's happened? Is he all right?"

François took a swing at him, but the Doctor ducked.

Martha scrambled to get to Tom, but he turned and got up on his own.

"Don't move! You might be…" she began.

"I'm fine," he said to her absently, now also ducking a blow from Jean-Marc. He stumbled backwards toward François, who saw an opportunity to charge him.

The Doctor now had one of the electrical prods in his hands. François took a running start at Tom, but the Doctor moved quickly and touched him in the shoulder with enough volts to make him scream for five seconds, and drop to the floor in pain.

As Jean-Marc wound up to deliver another blow to Tom, to everyone's shock, Alain took up the other electrical prod, and stabbed Jean-Marc in the back with it. Twin screams now filled the air, and both male Cervovores were temporarily writhing in the floor.

"TARDIS! Now!" the Doctor screamed.

Alain was mesmerized and horrified watching the two men (now starting to recover) in pain. He dropped the electrical wand, and stared at them with wide, disbelieving eyes.

The Doctor and Tom were already at the TARDIS, ready to enter, when a piercing, daemonic cry came from nowhere, and Sylvie, in all of her frog-fish-like glory came from behind the vessel, and attacked Tom. Her entire bubble-like body was now wrapped around Tom's left shoulder and head, and he yelled, trying to peel her off.

François and Jean-Marc were getting to their feet now.

Before they could quite gather their faculties, Martha took up the electrical wand, and shoved it into Sylvie's side, shocking both her and Tom. Their unison screams filled the space, like a pair of sirens. After three seconds, she pulled it away, and Sylvie was still twitching, and making trembling, growling noises in her throat. She had no choice but to let go of Tom, and fall to the floor, in a liquid-like mass of grey, almost non-corporeal flesh.

Tom was, literally, in shock, and stumbled backwards. The Doctor caught him under the arm, and threw open the TARDIS door with one foot. For the second time that night, he physically hauled Tom Milligan through a doorway, away from angry Cervovores. Martha grabbed Alain's hand just in time, and they all stumbled into the console room, cutting it fine, and locking the door behind them.

"Oh, my God… wha…" Alain began to ask, as he looked around the interior of the vessel.

"Not now," Martha snapped at him. To the Doctor she said, "Okay, now what?"

"Now, we try to reduce Jean-Marc to the same jelly-monster that Sylvie has become," he replied, amidst the sound of two aliens-cum-Frenchmen outside, throwing themselves against the TARDIS, and cursing at them.

"How do we do that?"

"Extract Alain's energy from their power centre, just like we extracted Tom's" the Doctor said. "Except… it might not work because the majority of his humanoid energy came from Gregoire."

"Who's Gregoire?" asked Tom.

"My boyfriend," Alain told him. "He died tonight."

Tom frowned, even as the screams and _thuds_ outside became nearly deafening. "Killed by Jean-Marc? Oh, I'm so sorry."

"Yes, it seems Gregoire and Jean-Marc had a destructive, co-dependent, semi-violent, but mind-blowingly _satisfying_ relationship for years before this nice man came into the picture," the Doctor said to Tom, putting an arm around Alain's shoulders in a gesture of camaraderie. "Jean-Marc followed him all over the world."

"Oh!" Tom said, his eyebrows high with alarm. "Whoa, now I see!"

"Yeah, so, shouldn't we try to get Gregoire's energy signature, if the majority of the time, _he _is who Jean-Marc has been targeting?" Martha asked the Doctor.

"We can't," he replied, moving toward the console. "His energy signature was extinguished when his heart stopped pumping and his brain stopped working. Alain is all we've got now."

"What chance have we got of reverting Jean-Marc to alien form using Alain?" she asked, her voice high and desperate. Even she could see that it wouldn't work as well as using Tom to cut Sylvie down to size. It _couldn't_ work as well.

"None," said the Doctor, pulling some sort of device out from the compartment underneath the controls. "But we've got a shot at keeping Alain from being his next prey. Jean-Marc already has to start over with a new victim, with Gregoire gone. He'll begin working on someone else fairly soon… if we don't extract Alain's energy…"

"He'll start working on Alain," said Martha.

Alain looked at all of them as though he were waking from a dream. "Oh. Well, I won't let him. I know what he is now."

The Doctor looked at Alain squarely, and shook his head. "He's already got his hooks into you. You've been with him sexually, yeah? And he got another healthy dollop by shocking you."

"How's that?"

"The Cervovores' consciousnesses are connected to the power centre, and the power centre is what gave you the shock," the Doctor told the man quickly. "And, bad news, the energy transfer works a little bit both ways – it's why Gregoire was never able to resist him. It's why Tom, you were never able to resist Sylvie. They are magnetic. They don't play fair. And their sexual prowess is tailor-made to keep you lot in line. It's almost like… software."

"So I won't be able to escape him? He'll just pursue me like the Terminator and keep getting me to shag him, then eventually eat my head?" Alain asked, panicking.

"If we don't stop him, there's a good chance, yeah," the Doctor said. "Which is why I'm hoping this will work."

Screams and shouts continued outside the TARDIS, though it now sounded like they were getting tired.

The Doctor showed Alain the thing he'd pulled from the console's hidden cabinet. It was a blue, light-metal bar in the shape of an isosceles triangle, except one of the sides of the triangle was split. The Doctor pulled the split open and approached Alain with it, clearly hoping to place it on his head.

"What's that?" Alain asked, staying still, though he was nervous.

"It's an energy amplifier of sorts," the Doctor said. "And it's going to be tight."

The two sides of the bar now rested on Alain's temples, and he winced, but did not complain. The Doctor plugged it into the console.

"What does it do?" Alain wanted to know.

"Well, the best way to get an energy signature from someone is to get them excited… you know, the way Jean-Marc and Sylvie operate. Fever-pitch excited, preferably. But I don't see that happening with you, Alain, so I'm hoping that _fear_ might give us the same result, with a little help from the amplifier here."

"Oh. Will that work?" the worried man asked.

"Only one way to find out," the Doctor said.

But Martha could tell from the look on his face that the Doctor didn't like his odds.

* * *

**Well, I hope the pseudoscience bits are clear - the mechanics of energy-transfers, and how they got Sylvie to revert to her original form, and whatnot.**

**In any case, leave me a review... but especially if there are parts you don't get! Thank you for reading!**


	11. Chapter 11

ELEVEN

The Doctor had pulled a blue, light-metal bar in the shape of an isosceles triangle, from a compartment under the console. Except, one of the sides of the triangle was split. Explaining that it was an "energy amplifier, of sorts," the Doctor pulled the split open and approached Alain with it, fitting the two sides of the bar on Alain's temples. Alain winced, but did not complain. The Doctor plugged it into the console.

"What does it do?" Alain wanted to know.

"Well, the best way to get an energy signature from someone is to get them excited… you know, the way Jean-Marc and Sylvie operate. Fever-pitch excited, preferably. But I don't see that happening with you, Alain, so I'm hoping that _fear_ might give us the same result, with a little help from the amplifier here."

"Oh. Will that work?" the worried man asked.

"Only one way to find out," the Doctor said.

But Martha could tell from the look on his face that the Doctor didn't like his odds. And indeed, he tried several times, with different strategies on the controls to work up enough fear-based energy from Alain to prove Jean-Marc's undoing.

But it wasn't enough.

Martha wasn't surprised, and certainly the Doctor was not either.

Though what did surprise her was that the Doctor gave her a furtive, worried glance.

"What?" she asked him, before she could stop herself.

He didn't answer, and instead approached Alain.

"I'm sorry," Alain said, worried, as the Doctor took the triangle from his head.

"Don't be," the Doctor said. "It was a long-shot. Not your fault at all. I suppose if simple _fear_ were enough, the Cervovores wouldn't have to go through this whole cultivate-a-destructive-sexual-relationship rigmarole, eh?"

"So now what do we do?" Tom asked.

They were reminded again of the Cervovore presence outside the TARDIS by a renewal of unhinged banging and screaming from Jean-Marc, François, and even Sylvie, outside.

"Now there's no way to beat Jean-Marc?" Alain asked, beginning to panic.

"There's a way," the Doctor said. "But you might not like it."

"Why not?"

"First things first," said the Doctor, as he flipped a switch and the TARDIS departed. "Let's get some distance, and some peace of mind."

* * *

To that end, back in the infirmary, Tom and the Doctor checked out Martha and Alain for adverse effects of electrical shock. Fortunately, the Cervovores were not interested in mortally harming anyone, not until it was time to "harvest." Indeed, Martha recalled the Sylvie-alien warning Jean-Marc and François that humans are fragile, and would not be able to sustain the successive shocks they were receiving.

Martha was participating somewhat in the process, while the Doctor verified that she was breathing all right, and poking her in strategic places, looking for nerve damage.

But Alain stared at the floor, almost catatonic, while Tom worked him over in the same way. He answered questions monosyllabically, and obeyed Tom's requests, but made no eye-contact nor offered any information he hadn't specifically been asked for.

Martha had also been listening to _their _interaction, and she, herself, was reasonably satisfied that Alain had not sustained any damage from the electrical shock…

…but, rather seamlessly, once that particular conclusion seemed certain, Tom began asking questions related to shock. That is to say, being _in shock_, as a result of the trauma of what he had seen, not electrical volts. Martha had begun this line of inquiry with Tom an hour or two before, just after he'd discovered the truth of Sylvie, and been removed from her presence.

But, though this had undoubtedly been one of the most harrowing nights of Alain's life, the three doctors became relatively sure that he was not in shock. Martha and the Doctor had watched and listened while Tom examined him. Eventually Tom turned to them both and shrugged.

"Am I doing something wrong? He's like, five or ten times the size of my usual patients," Tom reminded them, though it was mostly a rhetorical question.

"I'm going to have to let him stalk me, aren't I?" asked Alain, seemingly out of nowhere.

The next twenty seconds ensued in oppressive silence, while the three doctors stared at him.

At last he said, "Eh?" and looked at the Doctor. "I'm going to have to let him have me. Tell me the truth."

The Doctor answered, "Yes, you are. But not your head. Just your energy. And not forever."

"But… years."

"Probably - depends on how frequently he calls upon you. We need _time_ for Gregoire to fade from his energy stores, and for _your_ energy to overtake it. If we tried to extract your energy from him now, it wouldn't do any good because of the time he spent with Gregoire. I'm sorry."

Alain nodded, and returned to his position, staring at the floor. "Okay," he whispered.

"I'm not saying it'll be easy," the Doctor told him. "But you'll be all right in the end, and Jean-Marc will be reduced to nothing. Well, not nothing, but as good as."

"Doctor, you can't ask him to do that," Tom protested. "I know from experience, if he goes down that rabbit hole, he'll never have a normal relationship with anyone, ever again."

The Doctor responded, "I know it's a lot to ask. But the alternative is, we wait for Jean-Marc to glom onto someone else, follow them around for a few years, then drag _him_ (or her, I suppose) into this mess, explain it all over again, go through the whole head-taking business…"

"It's all right," Alain said, sombrely. "I get it. I'll do it for Gregoire."

Tom said, "Mate, I don't think you realise what you're signing up for."

"Several years of really great sex, with someone who will feel entitled to me, my body, all of my movements, personal relationships, and proclivities?"

"Well… yeah."

"And then, years of recovery, during which I might have, by turns, nightmares and also erotic dreams about him? Conflicted lust, heartache that I will never be able to explain to another human being?"

"Yeah," Tom sighed, realising he'd seen Gregoire go through it.

"I know," Alain said, simply. "It doesn't sound like a picnic… in fact, knowing what I know, it sounds terrifying. But if it'll save some other poor bastard from having to go into it blind, then I will do what I have to."

The Doctor sighed. "We _might _be able to convince them to leave the planet but I'm only particularly persuasive when I'm holding a trump card, and at the moment, I'm just not. Not without you. And as long as they still have traces of human energy, they will be able to hold humanoid form, and will be able to regroup and come back. There's no telling how much time Jean-Marc has to work with... again, probably years. During which time, this planet would be vulnerable. The only way to cut them down to size and properly scare the pants off them is to convince them that we know how to sap the energy they need. We've got Sylvie well and truly sapped..."

"You're going to need me, if you want Jean-Marc. I tell you, I understand," Alain said, softly.

Martha hopped up onto the exam table next to Alain, put her arm around his broad shoulders as best he could, and leaned her head against him. "I'm sorry."

"I promise, we'll keep you safe," the Doctor said. "As long as you communicate with us. Don't get so caught up in it that you forget who and what he is."

"Okay. Do you have, like, a mobile phone? Like a… person?" asked Alain. "Sorry. Didn't mean…"

"I do," the Doctor said, extracting it, and flipping it over in his hand. "Thanks to the illustrious Dr. Jones, here. Though, I expect the police in Nîmes will have seized yours as evidence."

Alain nodded. "It was on the night table in the hotel room when Gregoire was attacked. I'm sure they'll have taken it."

"If you give me a few minutes, I'll find you a new one, and I'll even doctor it up for you – pardon the pun – so that it can't fail when you need it," the Doctor offered.

Again, Alain nodded, and he swallowed hard, stuffing down a sob. The Doctor left the room, and Tom now sat down beside Alain on the other side, and like Martha, put a comforting arm around him.

"I'm so sorry for your loss, Alain," he said, after a few moments.

"Thank you," Alain whispered.

"How long were you and Gregoire together?"

"Only about eight months, but I considered him the love of my life," Alain said. "I'd never felt that way about anyone."

"Sometimes eight months is all it takes," Tom said. He made eye-contact with Martha, acknowledging that they had been together eight months when they became engaged. Everyone, especially Tom's mum, had thought it was too quick, but they had been rather hellbent on tying the knot.

Martha sighed at this.

"And I'm so sorry that undoing Jean-Marc has to be on you," Tom continued. "But I've been where you're going, and the Doctor got me out. He'll do the same for you. Won't he, Martha?"

"He will," she agreed.

"I hope you're right," Alain said, also in a whisper, and then the three of them just sat in silence.

Martha turned over Gregoire's death in her mind, a death which she had had the chance, but had been ultimately unable, to prevent. And Alain had nowhere near reached the pinnacle of his grief yet– he likely hadn't even had time to fully realise what he had lost, given that it had happened just a few hours ago, and he'd been talking to the police, and trying to survive as an alien hostage ever since.

Come to that, she and the Doctor, Tom and Sylvie had been sitting in Okeanós at dinner, just a few hours ago as well.

This night had seemed incredibly long.

But it had not been long, just _eventful. _In a span of about six hours, she'd reconnected with the Doctor, learned that her fiancé had been unfaithful, and had broken up with him in public. And now, here they were, fighting the Cervovores side-by-side. She had twice been in a hotel room with a man whose throat had been slashed – one had died, the other had needed stitches. She had witnessed an otherwise merely problematic French woman turn into a literal monster, had suffered though some fairly severe (though not, in the end, damaging) electrical shocks. She had visited five or six hotels, told a myriad of lies, and had been back and forth between Nîmes and London at least three times.

And, she was now reminded, in the midst of all this, she had sat down with the Doctor, in the flat that she'd shared with Tom, and taken stock. She had verbalised a thought she'd been having subconsciously for quite some time, regarding the solidity of her and Tom's relationship. Namely, it wasn't that solid, and it had never been, not from the moment of its inception. And the Doctor understood why, and had offered to fix it, in his way. Not fix her and Tom, but fix _her._

Tom had asked her, after finding out that Sylvie was an alien, whether he and Martha were now "mates." She had assented, knowing that they could never be lovers again. She had used his analogy about red and pink paint: once they mix, you'll never have pure red nor white again – only ever pink. And it was true, though all of it had been orchestrated by Sylvie (and perhaps her comrades), and their relationship was tainted. Tainted by the past, and by infidelity. By him touching someone else while she waited for him to return home. It felt mired, weighed-down, and not worth saving.

But though the pink analogy had been a reflection of how she felt, obviously, it wasn't the whole story. The whole story required a much more thorough examination of her historical relationship with the Doctor. She reckoned she owed him the truth.

After a few minutes, they realised that Alain had nodded off against Tom's shoulder. Tom stood up, and said, "Hey, mate, why don't you just have a lie-down, all right? Take as much time as you need, we'll be right outside."

Alain woke briefly and nodded wearily, and lay down on his side on the exam table. Martha reached into a cupboard and pulled out a blanket, covering him with it. She also extracted a pillow, and slid it gently under Alain's head.

"I reckon he just needs some down-time," Tom said.

"I reckon he just needs to escape," Martha added.

He nodded in agreement, and the two of them stepped out into the hallway.

Tom leaned exhaustedly against the door as they shut it, and Martha leaned on the wall opposite.

"This is fucking mental," he said, basically expressionlessly.

"No arguments here," she responded.

He stood up straight, then walked in a small circle, gesturing to their surroundings, the golden-brown, organic-looking walls and the marbly-looking floors. The roundels on the ceiling that radiated light, the corridors in either direction that seemed to lead into infinity…

"And _this_ is mental," he said. "How is any of it possible?"

"As I understand it, we are basically in another dimension," she said. "Localised, movable, a closed system. The front door of the police box is like a portal. But beyond that, I have no idea how it works."

"I mean… who _is_ this guy, Martha? This Doctor of yours?" Tom practically whispered. "He's not human, but he's a good guy?"

"Yeah, erm…"

"Okay, I've found an iPhone XR, which won't be released until 2018, but what's a decade in the grand scheme of things, eh?" the Doctor's voice said as he sauntered round the corner. "He'll have to keep it secret anyway."

"Okay. What does it do?" Martha asked.

"Well, the short answer is, it calls only me."

"And the long answer?"

"The long answer is, when I'm done with it, I'm hoping it will be psychically connected to Alain, so that even if he doesn't have it with him when Jean-Marc starts to get too, you know, bitey, he'll be able to contact me."

"You can do that?" Tom asked, incredulous.

"I think so," the Doctor said. "Won't know until I try. I might be able to soup up the phone with a bit of the TARDIS' sentience. It won't last forever, but it'll go for the five years, or whatever it takes for Jean-Marc to get what he needs from Alain."

"So you're not giving him a phone, so much as his own little psychic talisman," Martha surmised.

"Well, yeah. I could give him a radio or a Betamax player, or anything electronic, really," the Doctor said. "Maybe even a lamp. I thought a phone would be easiest for him to understand, carry about…"

"And how is it that you have an iPhone that won't be released until 2018?" Tom wondered.

"I think you know the answer to that, Tom," the Doctor said, patting him on the shoulder.

"Right."

"Where's Alain?" the Doctor asked.

"Asleep," Martha told him. "Poor man is exhausted."

"What about you?"

"Running on adrenaline, as usual," she said to him, with a smile.

"Me too, I think," Tom said, frowning quizzically. After a few beats, he asked, "So, that grey blobby thing… that's their true form, is it?"

"Yep," the Doctor confirmed. "They are only semi-solid – more plasma than anything, really. When they came here, they'd been knocking about the universe for a few hundred years, taking heads here and there… which was the only thing that gave them even _that_ much corporeal integrity. They came here, probably kidnapped and shocked a couple of random people to give them a temporary humanoid body, enough to go out and start targeting specific folks for a few years of increasingly weird shagging."

"Why me? Why Gregoire?" Tom asked.

"I don't know," the Doctor said, truthfully. "Sylvie probably just liked the look of you, and Jean-Marc liked Gregoire. Both of you are good-looking and athletic... the sort who can withstand a lot of physical demands, I suppose."

"Not because I was somehow an easy target?"

"I honestly can't say, Tom. Sorry. Anyway, their previous endeavours on other planets had not given them what they'd wanted…"

"Which was what?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Probably just a new home. Theirs is notoriously desolate. My very educated guess is that they're looking for oxygen, water stores, natural gasses, greenery, the whole nine yards."

"So, they want our planet?" Tom asked, voice high.

Martha rolled her eyes. "Ugh, don't they all?"

The Doctor nodded at her in commiseration. "If we investigated, I think we'd find that all of the Cervovores currently on Earth are scouts, or foot soldiers of a sort," he said. "Sylvie called them _emissaries._ They are meant to infiltrate your cultures, and develop a permanent foothold here – that is to say, completely absorb their new human form, so that they can live here with the efficiency and comfort of humans. Once that's been done by all of the initial emissaries, then they send more, then more… eventually, there would be enough Cervovore 'manpower,' as it were, to enslave the human race, and see to it that all of you lot have your heads taken in short order, giving all Cervovores a permanent fix in their human form."

"Holy shit!" Tom cried out.

"But that's just my guess," the Doctor said. "I've seen things like this before… I could be wrong, but I doubt it."

Tom frowned deeply, then said, "Okay, help me out here. In order to get their first foothold, these two blobby alien things come to Earth, kidnap some people and shock them, so that they can turn into incredibly attractive humanoids, then what? Let those people go?"

"Not just two – just two in this part of the world. Others in India, probably elsewhere, too. But yeah, you've got it so far. We'd probably find a bizarre police report in Nîmes about people being taken in their sleep, shocked, and then left on the promenade or in the carpark."

"But those two humanoids then had very limited powers… were in danger of reverting?"

"Yes, because the shock can only give them, maybe, a few days of humanoid form. They'd have had to find a mark pretty quickly."

"And that's where Gregoire and I come in."

"Yes."

"So Sylvie spends the night with me, and while we're shagging, she gets an energy signature off me."

"Yes."

"And this allows her to spend the better part of the ensuing decade relentlessly pursuing me, into and out of a relationship, in Paris, London, Amsterdam, Nîmes, and in the bloody Congo. She tracks my energy signature all over the planet, because getting energy from someone else wouldn't do – it had to be me."

"Once she started with you, it only made sense to stick with you. She can't take your head until she's fully assimilated everything she can from you, and that takes, well, years."

"So then, tonight, she decides it's time to take my head. And if she had succeeded, she'd be… human? Forever? Which would allow her to live comfortably on this planet forever?"

"Basically."

"And then more emissaries would come and do the same, until they've got enough to virtually bring the human race to its knees."

"Yes."

Tom walked around in a contemplative circle, then returned to his position against the infirmary door. "Okay. But, you caught me in a state of arousal, and also pulled an energy signature from me, and were able to use it… to do what, exactly?"

"Well, remember that energy centre down in the nest? She and her cronies are always connected to it, and therefore, whatever energy they absorb is connected to it as well. I fed your signature into the TARDIS, and instructed it to dial into the energy centre. From there, the TARDIS was able to identify your specific energy floating about in the power centre, and remove it. Thereby, also removing it from Sylvie. Which reverted her back to her original form."

"And so, the reason she was so pissed off is that, she has to start over with someone new, and spend more years cultivating that connection…" Tom said, trailing off.

"Setting back their mission another few years."

"Wow."

"And the reason Jean-Marc is so desperate now, is that he'd cultivated that connection with Gregoire, but accidentally killed him before he could take his head. The mechanism doesn't work if the mark is dead. He's got to start anew."

"And we're operating under the assumption that he'll go after Alain, because…?"

"Jean-Marc, Gregoire, and Alain had a… tryst as a trio tonight," the Doctor said. "His target was Gregoire, but apparently Gregoire insisted on Alain experiencing the wonder of Jean-Marc first, so Jean-Marc was able to gather an energy signature from Alain. Now he has it, he'll be able to stalk him fairly easily, and use his _wiles_ to get Alain to 'forgive' him. And Alain will do it, even though he doesn't want to…"

"Because you've asked him to."

"That, and… I don't think he'd be able to resist for very long. At least if he gives in on our account, it might save some time, that he might otherwise spend running away, trying to disappear."

"Okay, and… François. He'll be desperate now because his form will only be held for a short time, because he got it by shocking Martha."

"Right."

"So, if you can catch him soon, before he gets his hooks into someone sexually, then all you'd need to do is remove Martha's energy signature from the power centre."

"Right."

Tom stopped cold, and looked back and forth between the two of them, a revelation coming to light.

It was then that it hit Martha as well.

The Doctor had realised it some time ago, but saw it dawning on them only now.

"Tom, you've had a hell of an evening," the Doctor said. "Why don't you go home and get some sleep. If Sylvie tries to contact you, call us. But I doubt she'll do that, now she knows that you know me."

"What will you do about her?" Tom asked.

"Leave that to me," the Doctor said. "I reckon we've got about eighteen hours before she'll try to kidnap another shock-victim."

"Don't worry – the Doctor doesn't kill," Martha said, reading the concern on Tom's face. "Unless he has _absolutely_ no other choice."

"Okay. But I can't go, because I promised Alain we'd be just outside the door when he woke," Tom said.

"Leave that to me as well," the Doctor said. "We're back in London now. Martha, why don't you walk him home?"

Tom shook the Doctor's hand, thanked him, then made his way down the corridor toward the console room.

Martha turned to the Doctor and said, softly, a bit nervously, "Doctor, I'm going into that flat for the last time now. And I'm coming back with a packed duffel bag. This is your chance to change your mind."

"Why would I change my mind about a duffel bag?" he asked, just as softly.

"It's about what the duffel bag represents."

"A duffel bag represents… what? Someone staying for a while? Hopefully a long while? Yeah… why would I change my mind about that?"

She sighed, with a smile. "Okay, if you say so. And, er, my old room…" she began.

"…is being used as a racquetball court, sorry."

"Since when?" she asked, with a smile, and one hand on her hip. She'd been in there earlier this evening, and it was still intact as a bedroom, even still containing a few of her personal effects.

"Since tomorrow. I'm planning on gutting it, putting in wood floors, rubber walls, et cetera, et cetera."

"You play racquetball, eh?"

"Mm-hm. Especially in rooms where I don't want people sleeping. All the other bedrooms are going to become racquetball courts as well. Except mine, of course. Just decided this morning. What cursed timing this is."

She laughed. "All right! Well… I'll be back with my toothbrush, if you're sure."

"I'm sure," he said. "I'm very, very sure."

"Okay," she said, turning to look down the hall, where Tom had disappeared. Her tone became serious. "I'm going to go say goodbye now."

He nodded, then took her hand gently, and stroked the back of it briefly with his thumb. Then he bent, kissed her on the cheek, and said, "When you get back, we'll discuss what we're going to do about François, yeah?"

A rush of heat came over her. "Yeah."

* * *

**Thanks for reading, everyone! Sorry it's been so long between postings lately... hopefully I can get a shift on, in the next few weeks!**

**And hey! Don't forget to review! **


	12. Chapter 12

**It's time for Martha and Tom to say goodbye. **

**I rather like this scene... hope you enjoy it as well!**

* * *

TWELVE

When Martha and Tom stepped out of the TARDIS, they found that the when the Doctor had dematerialised from the carpark in Nîmes, he had rematerialised across the street from the flat that they had shared. Technically, they still did.

"Oh, right," Tom said, staring at the flat with surprise. "Well, I guess this is me."

"Guess so," Martha said.

"So this is it, then? I just go inside and get on with my life? And one of these days, I'll come home and find all of your stuff gone?"

"Can we talk about that bit later? Although, maybe I'll come in and grab some things now, if that's all right," she said.

They both knew she was looking for an excuse to stay a bit longer, because there were some things she needed to say. Tom didn't know everything about her, clearly, but this much he could tell.

"Yeah, of course," he said, and they crossed the street together. As he slid the key into the lock, he said, "So I suppose you've realised how the Doctor is planning on getting an energy signature from you, to beat François."

"Yes," she said, a frisson of nerves ripping through her, as she answered him, trying to sound serious and nonchalant at the same time. She had realised it a few minutes before, as had Tom, when they were clarifying the Cervovores' M.O. and the only way to undo it.

They stepped into the flat. "Are you ready to go down that road again with him?"

"Tom…"

"I mean, I can hardly judge, when it comes to sex with the ex," he said. "I'm just concerned that it will put you right back in that place where you were when you broke up. Feeling your high hopes are in vain… that is, if… if he's not human, were you and he able to… how does it work, exactly? Wait, don't tell me."

She sighed. "Oh, Tom. There's so much you don't know."

"Clearly."

"I mean… I lied to you. A lot."

"That's pretty clear, too. Seems like there was a lot of that going around when we were together," he said. Then he chuckled bitterly, shutting the door behind them. "When we were together. I'm acting like it was long ago and far away. It was earlier this evening! We woke up this morning side-by-side, a bit hungover, in fact, in this flat. We had wine last night, and snogged until we were blue in the face. And the only reason we _didn't_..."

"I know," she interrupted. "I was there."

"That was _last night!_ And we were fully intending on spending the rest of our lives together!"

"Yeah," she said. "I've had that revelation myself, more than once. Do you know, that dinner at the Greek place was less than eight hours ago?"

"Wow."

"But a lot has happened since then," she said. She now moved pointedly toward the bedroom. "Which I realise you realise. But I owe you an explanation."

She flipped on the light in the dark room, opened the wardrobe, and extracted a duffel bag. Tom sat down on the bed. "Okay. I'm listening."

She placed the duffel on the bed, and hollowed it out with both hands, letting it sit open. Then she stood still, and took a breath. "Earlier this evening, you asked me if _mates_ is all we are now."

"And you told me yes, because we're contaminated. We are pink paint."

"Yes, and that's true. But that's only part of the story," she said, now turning to begin pulling things from the wardrobe, and working them into the duffel.

"The rest of the story is about John, isn't it? The Doctor, whoever he is."

"You know it is," she said.

"You're going to get back together with him."

"Yes. And no."

He sighed. His whole body slumped. "Martha, could you not fuck with me right now? I'm so tired…"

She paused, placing a short stack of shirts into her duffel. Then, "Tom, how long was it, between when you and Sylvie broke up, and when you started seeing me?"

"I don't know, a couple months, maybe."

"So, it was pretty quick."

"Well, yeah, from one point of view. From another point of view, when I realised I'd met the perfect woman, I didn't hesitate, no matter how recent the breakup had been," he said, looking at her with longing.

"Tom, we both know that I'm not the perfect woman for you," she practically whined. "Superficially, yes, I'm a doctor, you're a doctor. I think you're clever, you think I'm clever. We both grew up in London, both have two siblings, we both love Indian food, and hate Chinese food, and we enjoy planting flowers together. And when we met, there was... attraction."

"You can say that again," he breathed. "Speaking for myself, anyway."

"All of that is lovely, but… you know I wouldn't want more than one child, if any at all, and you want a brood. I'm a city-dweller, and I'm allergic to most wild grasses, and you still want a farm. You are contemplating doing another stint with Doctors Without Borders, and I think that's a terrible idea. At the very least, I can say that I've never for even two seconds contemplated going with you. I think that's very telling, don't you?"

"Maybe."

"We would plan a wedding, and have a beautiful ceremony and a reception with all of our friends, and it would be absolutely breathtaking. Followed by a honeymoon, during which we'd shag our brains out and spend the rest of the time being half-naked on the beach in Greece, and that would be breathtaking, too. But then what? We'd come home, and find ourselves at a stalemate. Maybe not straight away, but two or three years in, you'd start talking about a migration of some sort, or I'd get pregnant, and it would lead to all sorts of questions that we never really got ready to answer."

"Wow - you sure know how to take the romance out of things."

"I'm being realistic. And the icing on the cake: your mother hates me."

"She doesn't hate you."

"Oh, please, of course she does. Half the time she calls me _Marsha._ And I know it's on purpose."

"Sorry. I've asked her to stop."

"I mean, am I wrong? Don't you think that over time, those differences will start to become more important than the similarities? At least, they will become bigger and bigger, and eventually unmanageable."

He sighed, and stared at the floor. For a long time, he sat with his elbows on his knees, and his eyes fixed silently on the carpet. She knew he was mulling over her words, and not just being sullen. At last, he said, "That's a hard pill to swallow."

"I know," she told him. She put one hand on his shoulder. "And this one is going to be even harder: Tom, I think you're with me because you needed someone to rescue you from Sylvie."

"What? No…"

"Yes. You needed a rescue from life with her, from being hung-up on her. From being chased down by her, and fighting so hard to resist her. From thinking about amazing, messed-up sex with her. I'll admit, I'm the one who pursued you at first, and I had my own reasons for doing that, but…"

"Yeah, I know, I was the one who wanted to go on a weekend away, like, immediately after we met," he said. "And I wanted to move in together, and I wanted the closer wedding date."

She smiled, and nodded. "You were the one who wanted to get serious, and fast."

"I was."

"And I let you," she said. "I may have nominally resisted, but in the end, I wanted it too, because…"

"You needed the same type of rescue from John, didn't you? The Doctor."

"Yes, I did. But not for the reasons you think."

"Okay, what does that mean?"

She sat down beside him. _Here we go,_ she thought.

"The Doctor, as you know, is not human. He's a Time Lord – last of. And he's somewhere in the neighbourhood of nine-hundred years old."

"Nine… _hundred?_"

"Give or take."

"Wait, what? That guy in the TARDIS? In the suit? The one with the hair? I thought he was, like, my age. Maybe thirty-five, tops!"

"I know. It's just one of the many incredibly bizarre things about him, that are hard to accept."

"I'll say!"

"But what you really need to know is that he's a traveller. He goes all over the universe, every galaxy, every time period, and he helps. He puts out fires, he stops apocalypses, he… shows people how to govern, or grow crops, or write computer viruses. He does whatever he has to, to keep things running smoothly and justly, and sometimes he's all that stands between a world and its destruction."

"Okay, so… don't understate it."

"It sounds grandiose because it is. Come on, Tom, you've seen the inside of his world now," she said, bumping her arm against him. "The TARDIS, the aliens, the planning and scheming and terror and… and all the rubbish he gets put through, just because of who he is."

"Sylvie and her friends knew him… seemed to have a vendetta."

"He runs into that all over the place," she chuckled. "But it's only because he has saved this – and every – planet so many times, he's literally lost count. He's bloody conspicuous. And yet, he works in secret, mostly, and never asks for anything in return and…"

At this point, she realised that she had given a speech very much like this to Tom before, though it was in a different reality. She thought about explaining to Tom that it was her involvement with the Doctor that had driven her to seek him, Tom, in _this _reality. She'd seen him fight and die, but the Doctor had turned back time and given everyone a second chance, so here they were…

…but she thought better of it. Tom needed to know the truth about "John," but the story about the Master would probably be too much, and would prolong this exhausting night even more than necessary.

"Do you believe me, Tom?" she asked.

He nodded. "I do. I'd have to be a bloody cretin not to, wouldn't I, things I've seen tonight?"

"Well…"

"It's like you said, I've seen his world. It's mental, and yet… it's real. I was there. Sylvie is… an alien. My ex-girlfriend is an alien. Wow, I can't believe I just said that so calmly."

"Welcome to my world."

"I've no reason not to believe that what the Doctor said is true: she's part of an insidious plot to take over the Earth. I mean, we all know aliens are out there now, right? Well, it all came home to roost tonight."

"It did," she agreed.

"So how do _you_ fit into all this? I mean, I'm getting the sense that he's more than just your ex."

"Well, he's not actually an ex," she confessed. "I met him on the day of Leo's twenty-first birthday, when some aliens infiltrated Royal Hope – long story. Anyway, we saved each other's lives. And I wasn't lying to you when I said that I was smitten with him from the moment we locked eyes. It was like a bolt of lightning for me. Sadly, it never was for him."

"What?"

"No, wait, I take that back," she said. She paused, thinking. "That night, after Leo's party, he invited me aboard the TARDIS, and we travelled together and I helped him solve the universe's problems for a couple of years. During that time, we were quite close, but never a couple. We only ever shared a bed when absolutely necessary, and nothing physical ever happened. We never even _talked _about it, or got close. Our cohabitation occurred in a vessel with near-infinite space inside – not the most intimate of situations. We only ever kissed once, and it was a ruse."

"Once? Are you serious?"

"Quite. But, in spite of that, I can't say there was _nothing_ there. I can't say that he _never_ had the bolt of lightning, because… looking back on it, I think he did."

"How could he not?"

"I think he chose me to travel with him for a reason, and it wasn't _just _because I'm clever. I mean, I did show a bit of grace under fire, sure, but…" she sighed and looked faraway for a few moments. Then, "A man doesn't look at a woman the way he looked at me, because she's got a clear head in a crisis."

Tom smiled. "Well-said."

"In spite of that, for a long time, I just thought he didn't fancy me, but… now I just think he was too afraid. The last time he'd _gone there_ with someone who travelled with him, it went spectacularly badly. Like, on an interdimensional level. So I think he just said to himself, _arm's length, no-one gets hurt._ Except… I did get hurt. So I left."

A long silence hung over them, and at last, Tom said, "So tell me. Is he still afraid?"

"No," Martha said, placing her hand on Tom's knee. "We had a pretty frank talk earlier tonight, when we were looking for you. And it doesn't seem that he's afraid any longer."

"And that's the real reason you can't be with me."

"It's a big part of it. The rest of it is that I honestly think you and I were never meant to be. We were each other's rebound, and now it's over."

"Oh God," he groaned.

"Tell me I'm wrong."

Once again, there was a long pause, while Tom contemplated the carpet between the borrowed boots on his feet. At last, he sighed, "I know you're not wrong. It's just… I just can't..."

"You don't love me, Tom. I know you like me, you respect me, you think I'm pretty, and maybe fun to talk to. But love me? Really? Can you _really_ not imagine life without me? When you think of losing me forever, do you despair?"

"Okay, I get it."

"Do you?"

He sighed. "Honestly, no."

She nodded, silently. "And I'm sorry, but I'm not despairing at the thought of losing you, either. I hate to think I've hurt you, or that we've gone through all this just to hurt each other. But, well, I told you earlier, I started letting go of you when we were having drinks at Okeanós."

"But the thought of giving up this chance with the Doctor?"

"That thought makes me despair," she admitted. "Every fibre in me wants to run toward him, as fast as I can, now that the door is open."

He nodded, and swallowed hard. "I understand."

She put one arm on his shoulder, and massaged the muscle. "And I'm sorry that you lost Sylvie tonight."

"It's all right."

"No, I know she's an alien, and she tried to kill you and stuff, but… you loved her once. May still, eh?"

"May. I dunno. I loved what she _was_, back in Nîmes, when we were really together, and things were good. Because even though the whole Sylvie Caboche life was a cover, she worked as a nurse, and did a damn fine job of it. Helped save a lot of lives. And I'm sorry, but the sex… Martha, you have no idea."

She smirked. "I'm almost sorry about that. There's been so much talk of it tonight, Sylvie and Jean-Marc and their amazing powers."

"Shit, I don't know how to feel."

"You don't need to know, you just need to feel. Give yourself time, Tom. Don't get into another relationship until you're ready. You might grieve, and I'd say that's to be expected."

He nodded. "Yeah. I reckon that tomorrow it will hit me that I'll never see her again, and… that will be really, really hard. In spite of everything. I can't deny it."

"I'm sorry it turned out this way."

He sighed. "Me too. But Martha?"

"Yes?"'

"For the record, I didn't invite Sylvie to dinner with us because I was trying to sabotage our relationship. I genuinely think that the best way to handle difficult topics in relationships is to get them out in the open, expose them, talk about them, work with them. And, I genuinely thought that the best way to handle Sylvie was to get her… well, out in the open. Have you see her, hear her, interact with her on your own. I did honestly think that if we could get some of our issues and questions answered, including with John-slash-the-Doctor, it would make things better. Admittedly, I was hoping you wouldn't find out about what I did the DRC – what she made me do – but at this point, that's neither here nor there. I just want you to know that no part of me wanted to weaken what we had. I only wanted to strengthen."

"Okay," she said, nodding softly. "I believe that… it does make a kind of sense."

"It was just a stupid idea, considering who we were dealing with, and I should've known that… even _before_ I knew what she really was."

"Well, I kind of thought so, but it's water under the bridge."

"Right, yes. So… you go, Dr. Jones," he said, taking her head in both of his hands. He kissed her one last time on the mouth and said, "Go grab your opportunity with the Doctor. Let him rescue you from me. Or from himself. Or… what am I saying? You don't need rescuing. Just go be together. Don't take it for granted that you're getting another chance at this."

"Oh, I won't," she said, getting, in spite of herself, choked-up. He let go of her, and his face fell. She laid her head on his shoulder and asked, "Want me to call you in a couple of days, see how you're doing?"

"That would be nice."

"Okay. Need anything before I go?"

"No," he said. "I'm hoping to crawl into this bed and sleep for about eleven years. Calling in sick tomorrow."

She stood up, and zipped her duffel. "All right, but don't wallow too long, eh?"

"I won't."

She bent and kissed him on the cheek. "Bye, Tom."

"Bye, Martha."

* * *

Martha stepped into the TARDIS with her duffel bag, and made her way down the hall, to where the Doctor was waiting outside of the infirmary. He sat against the opposite wall, seemingly zoning out, forearms on his knees, eyes on nothing in particular.

"Oi," she said, softly. "All right?"

"I'm fine. You?"

"Drained, but… happy."

"Tom?"

"He's a bit worse for wear," she admitted. "But he'll be okay. It's going to be a slow, lonely slog for him, I expect."

"He's just lost two fairly memorable women from his life, all in one night," the Doctor commented. "Don't know how he _wouldn't_ be just a little bit undone."

"I said we'd ring in a few days, to see how he's doing."

"Good idea," the Doctor said, standing up.

She closed the space between them, and he enveloped her in a comforting, exhausted hug.

"Part of me can't believe I'm back here," she said, softly. "And _really _can't believe what's happening with..."

"Us?"

"Yeah," she admitted.

"Feels right in every part of me," he retorted.

"I definitely meant _can't believe_ in a good way," she said.

And they stayed this way for a while, then he pulled away and asked, "So, what's going on with Alain? Is he sedated or what?"

"No," Martha said. "He'd just had it, and nodded off. So we reckoned we'd let him sleep."

"Oh, good," said the Doctor. "I was afraid he freaked out and you or Tom had to shoot him up with something strong and… strong."

"No, actually, he accepted his lot fairly well," said Martha. "He sees it as his duty to take one for the team, as it were… I suppose _we _are the team. And Gregoire, of course. So lucky Jean-Marc didn't get his claws into someone weak-willed."

"Really," the Doctor agreed. "But he must be terrified."

"He definitely is that," Martha sighed. "He's going to be lonely too… even while canoodling Jean-Marc and having a relatively good time at it. Getting deeply involved in someone you _know_ wants to kill you, and trusting your very life to some guy who showed up out of nowhere in a blue box…"

At that moment, they heard banging. Three sharp wooden raps on the front of the TARDIS door. Then, the squeak of the door opening, and Tom's voice. "Martha?"

Martha and the Doctor looked at each other with wide-eyed shrugs.

Last he'd seen them, the Doctor was promising to be outside Alain's door when he woke. He must have assumed they'd still be there, because the next thing Martha and the Doctor heard was Tom's footsteps jogging toward them.

He rounded the corner and said, "Oh, good, you're still… hi."

"Hi," Martha said. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I was just thinking," he said, walking toward them. "Do you reckon Alain would fancy having a flatmate?" For emphasis, he pointed at his own face.

"Are you serious?" she wondered.

"Yeah. His partner died. Mine left me. He's going headlong, and scared stiff, into this fucked-up relationship with a voracious alien, which he'll never be able to describe to anyone who hasn't experienced it. It will leave him, if not dead, at the very least, confused and desolate. And I can relate! The process with Jean-Marc will be an isolating one… wouldn't it be nice if he had someone he could talk to? Plus, a second pair of eyes, just in case things get out of hand, and he doesn't see the danger coming? And me, I don't swing that way, so there's no danger of me getting involved. I'll just try to live my life, and be there for him when he needs a shoulder, and maybe he can be there for me while I come to terms with what's happened… what do you think?"

"I think it's a decent idea, but you'll really need to wait for Alain to wake, so you can ask him," Martha said. "You know he's French, right?"

"Yeah, I kind of gathered that, but he speaks English like a native. And I speak French… I'll live in France if he wants. I've got nothing tethering me to this country now."

"He may not speak English, actually," the Doctor said. "The TARDIS has translation circuits, been making it sound like English to you, because it's your native language."

"Wait, what? Actually, never mind. It doesn't matter. I think it will work either way," Tom shrugged. "And I'll wait until the Jean-Marc thing is over before I go back to Africa. It gives me something to focus on while I get over Martha and Sylvie. It gives me a goal, something _good_ that I can do in the wake of all this."

"Okay," Martha said, with some finality. "But again, we'll have to wait and see what Alain says."

"Send him my way when he gets up, yeah?" Tom asked, heading for the console room again.

Martha agreed, and they heard the door shut once more.

* * *

**Okay, friends, you know what I'm going to say now. Thanks for reading, and don't forget to leave a review!**

**Don't be silent!**


	13. Chapter 13

**The Cervovores face the Oncoming Storm... even if right now it's just in the forecast, not yet in the sky. Heh, heh. Enjoy!**

* * *

THIRTEEN

Alain slept for another hour, and when he woke, Martha and the Doctor did as asked, and saw him off in London, crossing the street toward Tom's flat. The Doctor had relayed to him Tom's suggestion that perhaps Alain might like a flatmate, and Alain's face had lit up, if not with happiness, at least with relief. Alain had said he would talk with Tom and consider it. At the very least, he wanted to lay low for a day or two before returning to the whirlwind of Gregoire's death, and doing so with a somewhat kindred spirit like Tom, might not be the worst idea. The Doctor said that he and Martha would return in the TARDIS, and give him a lift back to France whenever he rang, using his new phone.

By now, the sun was coming up on London. It seemed odd to see the neighbourhood bathed in brightening gold tones, when the night had been so bloody and bleak.

Although, for Martha and the Doctor, it was a new day, indeed.

"And then there were two," the Doctor said, as he shut the door. Then, with exaggerated mock-enthusiasm, he asked Martha, "Fancy a trip back to Nîmes?"

Martha, who was leaning against a railing on the ramp, adopted his tone and said, "Boy, do I!" The two of them walked up the ramp and got into _travel_ mode round the console. "Back to the nest?"

"Yep," he said, popping the P. "I've got to go back and be all earnest and threatening for Sylvie's benefit."

"Cool. I like when you do that."

The TARDIS did its thing, and when it stopped, he said, "Let's see how much I have to bluff them." He typed a command or two into the keyboard on the console, waited for data to come back, and said, "Okay… I guess now I know."

"Know what?"

At that, they heard a blood-curdling scream outside the doors, and recognised Sylvie's shrill, inhuman voice, loosely pronouncing the Doctor's name, and expressing its displeasure at seeing the blue box again.

Martha's question had to wait. They looked at each other with resigned faces and stepped out.

And when they did, they were right back in the electrical room of the carpark in Nîmes. A bulbous, grey, alien life-form was traipsing over the wires and cables, back and forth like a maniac. Two good-looking men, nude from the waist-up, were sitting nearby, on the floor, backs to the wall, looking despairing and exhausted.

"Where'd François find trousers?" Martha whispered.

"Dunno," the Doctor whispered back. "Broke into a car, maybe?"

"You," Sylvie snarled when she saw them. Then she snorted, and started pacing again.

François got to his feet. "Hello," he said, rather awkwardly. His eyes were fixed on Martha, and he walked straight for her, completely ignoring the Doctor. He stopped about five feet from her. "Martha, is it?"

"Erm, yes."

"I hope you can forgive me for before."

Her jaw dropped open, and she was frozen for a moment as she tried to respond, and found that she could not.

"Hello?" François said, with a little smile, seeming to search her face.

"Erm, yes, hello. Are you _apologising_ for shocking me? With God knows how many volts? Like, an hour ago?"

"Yes," he said. He feigned dismay, looking at the floor and shaking his head. "I am – I'm so, so sorry. I'm so embarrassed – I don't know what came over me."

In the background, Jean-Marc groaned. "Ugh. Really?"

She narrowed her eyes in disbelief. "You _don't know what came over you?_ Are you mental?"

"So it would seem," he sighed. "I hope that won't stop us from being friends."

"What?" she asked, totally and completely incredulous. "Sorry, I mean… what?"

He smiled affably. "I'd like us to be friends," he told her.

"You would?"

"Of course. I'd like to make amends for what I did, and maybe get to know you. You seem like someone who would be worth my while."

* * *

The Doctor had been watching the exchange between a desperate François and a surprised Martha with a measure of intellectual curiosity. He was a bit horrified, a bit surprised, but his brain-wheels began to turn a bit more.

Part of him wanted to scream, _Can you not see me standing here, you prat? Do you not know who I am and that I can see _clear as day _what you're doing? And probably so can Martha? Do you not realise that we were just here an hour ago and saw you transform from an alien toad into this humanoid thing, with very bad seduction skills?_

But part of him also realised, a) that this moment was awkward and weird, but the phenomenon could potentially be used as a tool, should it come to that and b) that he, the Doctor, did not one-hundred-per-cent understand the seductive powers of the Cervovores, and his effect on Martha should not be entirely discounted. _Something_ had kept Tom and Gregoire coming back to them time and again, for more abuse. He rather hoped that the enthralling qualities of the Cervovores were something that would develop over time, and were every bit as clumsy as they seemed now, on François' first night as a ladies' man.

"Okay, okay," the Doctor said, getting between François and Martha, just as the desperate Cervovore was reaching out to touch her. "We didn't come here to get schmoozed, or whatever the hell you're doing. We came here to talk to you. All three of you."

François seemed nonplussed to have had his ridiculous wooing of Martha Jones cut short, as though he'd forgotten the Doctor was there.

"Okay, this is the part where he threatens us," Sylvie said, her flipper-like arms flailing, somehow almost conveying _sarcasm_. "Offers us a chance to back off, or else!" Then she and Jean-Marc laughed.

François did not laugh. He looked at Martha soulfully, as if he was taking _her_ seriously, at the very least.

"Well, yeah," the Doctor said, tugging at the hair on the back of his head, and making his way a bit closer to the mass of cables and wires over which Sylvie was stalking. "I reckon you've got me."

Sylvie and Jean-Marc laughed again. "Why the hell would we leave before our mission is accomplished?" Jean Marc asked.

"Because all three of you are starting from scratch now," the Doctor said, rather affably, with a hard-as-nails tone just beneath the surface. "It's going to take you _years_ to get your hooks back in, enough to take a head, and until then, you're vulnerable. And as you may have heard, I'm not your average handsome bloke in a blue box. I'm actually quite clever. Jean-Marc and François, I reckon you'll go after a pair of choice humans now, but my friends and I most definitely have a plan for your undoing. And over the coming weeks, we intend on undoing all the cells of Cervovores on this planet. We will find wherever the India cell went, and unravel their work, just like we unravelled Sylvie's, and will unravel Jean-Marc's and François'. If there are other nests, we'll get them too. And so, it is futile, at best, for you to stay here."

Sylvie and Jean-Marc laughed again. "_Starting from scratch_ will be such a pleasure," the former said to the latter, as though the Time Lord weren't there.

"In order to do that, Sylvie, you'll have to shock someone first," said the Doctor. "Sorry, love, but looking the way you do, it'll have to be the shock, before it can be the shag. And with my TARDIS dialled into your power centre as it is, and has been since we first landed here, I will know when you begin firing it up for the attack. And I will stop you."

Sylvie put her hands on her hips and stared at him sideways, with one fish-eye. "You can't stop me."

"Oh no?" he asked. He stalked back to the TARDIS, and kicked open the door. He aimed the sonic screwdriver at the console, and send feedback through its consciousness, causing the power centre on the wall to spark.

Jean-Marc crawled away from it in surprise, as both Sylvie and François jumped, and gave a surprised yelp.

"I think I can," he said, his eyes cold as ice. "If I can do that, then that means I can stop the electrical current. And, I can route it back through you. I could do it to any one of you. Or all of you. Now, I don't have confirmation on what the feedback would do to you, Sylvie, but I'll take an educated guess: it will make you even less corporeal than you already are. Your liquid-like body will be much less _like_ liquid and more… well, _actual_ liquid. Good luck getting anything done then!"

"You don't have the power to do that," she protested, meanly. "You can't feed the electrical current back through to me. You're not a Cervovore."

"No, but my TARDIS is awfully versatile," he reminded her. "If it can extract Tom Milligan's energy signature from the power centre, and thereby from you, what makes you think I can't duplicate the process backwards, with something a lot less pleasant? All I'd have to do is reverse the polarity. I'm brilliant at reversing the polarity."

The frog-like creature stood, huffed, puffed, and drooled in anger. "I'm not afraid of you!" she insisted.

"Sylvie, or whatever your name is," the Doctor said, shoving his hands into his pockets, and sauntering further forward coolly. "That's the second time you've said that to me, yet all of the evidence points to the contrary. In fact, do you know what I've found in my long, long years of knocking about this great old universe?"

"What?" she spat.

"That no-one who is _actually_ not-afraid of me ever feels the need to tell me so," he answered.

"Arrogant," she hissed.

"Well, you're not wrong," he conceded. "But it's only because I've got prior experience with rubbish like this, and I'm still alive."

This was the part of the dance that Martha enjoyed the most: the Doctor and the bad guy, right on the precipice of falling into the abyss, yet the Doctor is cool and collected, and the adversary is trying to visibly force down panic. The Doctor's arrogance did indeed show though, because he knew how this show would end, and so did she.

She smiled subtly.

The Sylvie-thing spent a few more seconds huffing and puffing. Jean-Marc stood behind her, glowering at the Doctor, and François stood by, trying to look sensitive, but betraying fear, just like the other two.

Then, she stalked up to the Doctor, her fin-feet squishing along the floor. The top of her head came no higher than his sternum, but she craned her very thick neck, and looked up at him, her breath shallow and shaky. "I am not afraid of you. You are not a threat."

"Keep saying it, maybe it will come true," he said to her, his voice low and growl-like.

"You. Are. Not. Scary," she insisted.

He smiled delightedly, and gave a giddy little giggle. "Okay! Want me to get scary? How about this: with my TARDIS dialled into your power centre, I can empty it. I could burn out the inside and create a vacuum, clearing it of all evidence that there was ever human energy inside, and I can send the empty signature back to the High Senate on your home planet."

François' breath hitched subtly. Sylvie and Jean-Marc simply gaped at the Doctor.

"I know you'd like to think I can't do it," the Doctor continued. "But let me reiterate: you _experienced_ what my TARDIS can do with energy signatures, Sylvie. You used to be a foot taller, had a torso and head that were separate from one another, and legs that could turn heads in a _good_ way. I got hold of a panting, sweaty, worked-up Tom Milligan for a minute and now…"

"Oi, there's no need to be insulting," François cut in. It felt, to everyone in the room, like a total non-sequitur. He wasn't up to his full smooth-guy powers yet… and that was a relief.

The Doctor paused for effect, to let what he'd said sink in. And then, "I mean, I would _rather_ just have you stop what you're doing and leave this planet of your own volition, and failing that, I'd rather sap each one of you of the energy that keeps you humanoid, and basically just neuter you," he shrugged, walking around in a circle. "But if you want me to, I can do the thing that would force your High Senate to have you involuntarily transmatted home, and vaporised. I mean… your decision."

"Doctor…" Sylvie hissed. It sounded like neither a protestation, nor an expression of shock. Just a trying-on of his name in her mouth, as though it disgusted her.

"I'm the guy who will always go the non-violent route, if you let me," he continued. "But my priority is keeping the Earth, and every person on it, safe. So, you know, ultimately, I'm good with whatever."

There seemed to be a stand-off while the Cervovores seethed, and the Time Lord stood with one leg bent, and his hands crossed over his chest. Martha Jones stood by, letting her eyes drift back and forth between all of the beings in the room…

"Why don't you just do it then?" Sylvie finally shouted, with a ragged voice, filled with out-of-control rage. "Do it! Do it!" By the end, she was screaming.

Jean-Marc and François advanced, grabbed her by the arms, and pulled her away from the Doctor, trying to shut her up.

"Why don't I just do it? Because," the Doctor said, flipping the sonic screwdriver in the air, then depositing it back in his suit jacket's inside pocket. "I'm giving you a chance. You can't become humanoid again without the TARDIS knowing about it. And your friends, well… their days are numbered, if I have anything to say about it. And I do. So, you can go back to your Senate and say that you tried your best and failed, or you can get hauled home in shackles with all of your evidence destroyed, and face execution. Think on it. Come on, Martha."

* * *

Once the TARDIS' door was shut and locked, Martha turned her back to it, and sank against it.

"That was brilliant," she said. She was aware that she sounded like a teenaged girl swooning over a boy band, but she didn't care.

"Thanks. I needed to hear that," the Doctor muttered, going straight for the console, dematerialising the vessel, then pulling the computer screen round to view. "Because I can't do what I said I can."

"I don't care," she sighed, amidst the familiar, homey grinding sound of the universe slipping through and around the TARDIS.

He looked up at her for a moment, and smiled subtly. "Well, let's hope I'm at least believable."

"You know you are," she told him. "You've bluffed your way up and down the universe, seventeen times, and eighteen on Sunday. And you're still kicking."

"I suppose that's true. But it's the truths that have allowed me to bluff, the times when I _did _do what I said I would do…" he trailed off.

"Don't go there, Doctor," she said. "Count this as a victory. I believed what you said. I _know_ you, and yet I had no idea that you can't do the things you said."

"Okay, well, don't get me wrong," he corrected. "I _can_ reverse the polarity in their power centre and send voltage back through to the Cervovore administering it, if one of them is actually brazen enough to try shocking a human now."

"Oh. Good."

"It really is part of the same mechanism that allowed me to do what I did with Tom's energy signature, and Sylvie's connection to it," he told her. "But the part about scrubbing out the power centre… I don't think that could be done without partially destroying the TARDIS' inner workings. It would have to insinuate too much of itself into the Cervovores' power centre, and therefore their consciousness, in order to really scrub it clean, in a way that would get them all executed. The TARDIS would come back to itself corrupted, almost by something like a virus, which would do God-knows-what to her."

"It won't come to that," she assured him. "They'll pull out. Either that, or Alain will come through with his taking-down of Jean-Marc, and you can use me to get François."

He looked at her, with a mixture of surprise and confusion. "Use you? Is that how you…"

"No," she corrected. "Come on, you know what I mean. Use my energy signature… not me."

He swallowed hard, and nodded, returning to the console screen.

They were silent for quite some time, while Martha sat on the lone seat in the console room, and the Doctor seemed to fret over data. It was Martha who broke the reverie, when she said, "This is weird."

"Isn't it always?" he asked.

"No, I mean, it's the first time I've come to a lull in an adventure with you, knowing it could be _years _before we get satisfaction. Usually when the eye of the storm comes, it's just that. This feels more like… a hiatus."

"It happens this way once in a while," he sighed. "Every time I meet a Dalek, I reckon, it'll be a while, but I'll see them again, and someday maybe… well, I'll use your phrase: maybe I'll have satisfaction."

"It's a little hard to live with."

"Too hard?"

"No," she shrugged. "Just another thing I've got to get used to, in the world of the Doctor. It's all right – I've got prior."

"Plenty of things you don't have prior for, you know," he muttered, rather shyly.

"I know," she said, hopping off the stool, and wrapping her arms around his waist. He responded by wrapping his around her as well. "I'm looking forward to that bit, as well."

* * *

**As always, please review! The story is starting its descent at this time... what are your thoughts?**

**Thank you for reading!**


	14. Chapter 14

**I have only one thing to say: please don't hate me. ;-)**

* * *

FOURTEEN

It had been, to say the least, a harrowing and long night's journey into day. It was Saturday morning, the sun was up, and it was a new day in London. Fortunately, the TARDIS had no windows, so when the Doctor and his Companion decided to rest, they were able to do so with no reminders of daybreak, nor any sense that it was not _time_ to sleep.

They could not, however, escape the reminder that they were lying side-by-side, now a couple (right?), and _sleep_ was to take precedence before any other concerns that might arise when _a couple_ lies down together.

And so, they chatted a bit to fend off the awkwardness, and the reawakened (but tentative and confused) desire. But it was less than a half-hour before the Doctor heard her breathing fall deep and steady, and he was sure she was out for a lot of hours.

* * *

It was approximately six hours later, and lunchtime, when Martha heard the Doctor's voice, and felt his hand on her arm, gently waking her.

"Hiya," he said, as she opened her eyes, looked about for a few seconds, then focused on him.

"Hi," she responded. "What time is it?"

"Noonish," he shrugged. "Fancy a spot of lunch?"

"I fancy a good chiselling-out of the crusty bits in my eyes, followed by a shower," she told him.

"Fair enough," he said. "Let me show you where the towels are."

He led her to a short dark wood-lined hallway leading to the bathroom, along the walls of which was a series of deep, wide linen cabinets. Martha had an idea that the TARDIS somehow kept towels and sheets clean and stocked, because she really couldn't imagine the Doctor spending hours folding and stacking.

She grabbed two plush towels and disappeared into the bathroom for about an hour, while she explored it, showered, explored more, put on some makeup, and changed into her own jeans, her own sandals, and her own white tee-shirt. She felt like herself, and that was fantastic.

"Okay," she sighed, walking into the console room. "Now what?"

He was chewing something. He had some sort of hand-sized pastry in his hand, and he handed her one, on a napkin. On the console, there were two apples, and two bottles of water, one of each of which had been partly consumed already. When she bit into the pastry, she discovered two things: it was stuffed with orange-coloured, liquid cheese, bits of broccoli, and a few scraps of chicken, and the inside was scalding hot.

"Ow!" she yelped, spitting the bite out into a napkin.

"Yeah, sorry… hazard of the microwave," he muttered, then switched gears quickly. "So, to answer your question, now, we set about trying to find out where the India cell went. They've already taken four or five heads, so it's probably a larger group than the one we're dealing with in Nîmes, and it might be really tough tracking them down, since at least some of them are permanently human now. More or less."

"Ugh, really?"

"If Sylvie was registering as human after shagging Tom – and mind you, they were interrupted – then certainly any Cervovore who's actually taken a head will do, as well. Sylvie's humanness was temporary, and within a few minutes, she was no longer fooling the sonic. But the India cell…" He sighed heavily. "They won't be easy to find. Not even a little bit."

"How do we even start?" she asked.

"Well, I suppose we can't rule out that Sylvie might have been lying about them moving away from India. One way or another, we'll have to start in New Delhi, because I'm going to need to know a little more about them, and their crimes. How do they think? What do they know? What do they want.. well, besides world domination? Et cetera, et cetera. And then I can make an educated guess as to where to go poking about."

* * *

They exited the TARDIS in New Delhi, and went to the local police, offering their services as detectives from Scotland Yard, in the five mysterious beheadings of the last several weeks. It took them nearly all of the rest of the day to penetrate the organisation enough to get an audience with the Director General, and convince him just to allow them to see the pathology reports. The Doctor had already seen them, of course – he'd hacked into the digital files weeks ago. But he wanted to see any errant markings, anything odd that had been left in the dossier, or inserted… sticky notes, highlights, markers perhaps where someone had stopped reading. He felt that these little "human" touches, missing from the official record, could be investigative clues that might lead them to something significant.

They were given no more than an hour in a basement file room, in which the furniture looked like it had not seen the light of day since 1970. It had dark floors, dark walls, and the lingering smell of cigarette smoke. They sat down, to work immediately, reading, ruminating…

The Doctor had already made note that four of the victims were male, and only one was female, and that all of them had been found in various states of undress. What he hadn't thought to notice before was the victims' next of kin – all listed as parents or siblings – no spouses nor children, no significant others. It was not surprising that none of them were married, and that they all were between the ages of 18 and 35, social, attractive, and professional.

"Let's talk to this guy's sister," Martha said, of one of the victims. "Sanjesh Bhopal, died about four weeks ago. His sister is Anika. Looks like they were flatmates before his death. I bet she'll have a thing or two to say about the person he was dating."

"You're probably right about that," the Doctor muttered, with a pencil in his teeth.

"Maybe if we're lucky, the family won't have suspected that person, and he or she will still be lingering in their lives, trying to help sort out affairs or something."

"Excellent point."

A quick search revealed that Anika worked by day in a restaurant in a high-traffic tourist area, but by then, it was late evening. They decided to wait until the following morning before tracking her down.

"Thank goodness," Martha sighed.

"Why?"

"It's taken us hours and hours just to get to this point, the point where we can actually _carry out_ some of the detective work, and now that we're here, I'm not really feelin' it. Sorry."

"Not feelin' it? Why so?"

"Well, if I'm honest, I'm feeling like a hyperactive adolescent."

"You're concealing it very nicely."

"I just mean, I want your attention on me, and not in a file," she confessed, sheepishly. "After the run we've had the last twenty-four hours, I reckon I've earned it."

He smiled. "You are not wrong." He stood up, and gathered up all of the files under one arm, and reached out to her with his other hand. "Come on."

She took his hand, and let him lead her back to the file room's secretary's desk, and they left the files on her chair, as she had asked them to.

From there, they made their way back to the TARDIS.

* * *

They worked together preparing a meal, and without even trying, they were soon _feelin' it_. There was easy banter without a crisis at-hand. There was the added sensuality of delicious flavours and aromas. There was the literal heat. There was the close-quarters of the kitchen. There was wine.

And when it was all over, dinner was eaten, and there were two people sitting at a small table off to the side of the kitchen, half-drunk and holding hands.

"You know…" the Doctor said, clearing his throat, pushing aside his empty glass. "I realise it's none of my business, and you can tell me to go jump in a lake if you want. But I'm really curious as to how things went with you and Tom."

"You mean, in his flat, in the wee hours when we said goodbye," she asked, smiling a bit playfully.

"Yes," he responded, returning the same type of smile.

"Well, maybe it _is_ your business now. A lot of it was about you."

"I thought as much," he said. "Or... wondered. I think it speaks very well of you that Tom didn't appear to hate my guts when he came back inside, to suggest an alliance with Alain. You must've been very diplomatic."

"I said that I really, _really _need and want to be with you, now that the door is open, but I didn't let him believe that you are the only reason I can't be with him."

"Good. Because I'm not. Right?"

"Right, yes. I told him my take on him and me, and the whole rescue-rebound phenomenon, and he didn't disagree. He admitted that he didn't feel despair at the thought of life without me, and I admitted the same. And I told him the truth about you and me, past and present. At least, the truth as I see it."

"As you see it? What does that mean? Are you not clear on what's happening here?" he asked her with concern, moving his hand a bit further up her arm. His middle three fingers insinuated themselves inside the cuff of her light blue hoodie, and moved back and forth affectionately, sending a frisson from her extremities straight to her core. Funny how just a small movement, timed just right, from the right person, could distract so completely, even for a just a few moments.

"No I think I'm clear on _this,_" she answered. "It's the last two-to-three years that are ambiguous."

"Well, let me clear it up for you," he said, still stroking her arm clandestinely inside her clothes. "I fancied you from the moment I saw you, and was a dolt for the ensuing three years, and tried to deny it to myself."

"That's kind of what I told him," she admitted. "Except I didn't say you were a dolt. I said you were afraid."

"That too."

"But that you aren't anymore."

"Well, that's not entirely accurate," he said, looking down at the table. "But I'm ready to take chances that I wasn't ready for before. I'm still terrified."

"To be with me?"

"To love you and lose you."

"I'm actually terrified of that, too," she whispered. "Though, I've been down that particular road before."

"I'm sorry," he told her. "It will be worth it. Love is always worth the risk, and the time spent. It's taken me, unfortunately, several lifetimes to relearn that."

He slipped his fingers out of her cuff, reached for the wine, and poured himself another half-glass, then offered her some.

"I'm already pretty loopy," she sang. "No telling what would happen if I drank more."

He moved his chair to the left, so that he was now sitting beside her, within snogging distance. "Let's find out," he said.

With his right hand, he poured her another dose of wine. Then, with the other, he grabbed her cheek and jaw, half-pulling, half-leaning in for a kiss.

* * *

The two newly-poured glasses remained untouched.

Their lips, however, became occupied and stayed that way for quite some time.

Right there at the table, the language of the slow burn began to make itself very well understood. Before she knew what was happening, he had both hands on her – hips, arms, thigh, cheek, and back again – she had slid into his lap, and found herself loosening his tie. She undid the top button of his shirt, and her fingers snuck under the fabric, for this first, rare feel of ordinarily forbidden warm skin.

And then his lips found her neck, and he peeled back the bit of her hoodie that was keeping his kisses from her collar bone. He licked this sensitive flesh, and a bolt of lust slammed through her… the newness of it, the fulfilment of fantasy and opportunity, and years of waiting…

She undid another of his buttons, and felt the first hints of chest hair, and the sinewy, lean, impossible body attached. And this was when she wondered if _anything_ would remain forbidden after tonight.

Then she thought, _whoa, that was fast._

Yesterday, she woke up engaged to someone else.

This morning, they had lain down, unsure of what to do next.

Well, now they knew _exactly_ what to do next… and it was incredibly exciting. But just so _fast._

There was baggage from Tom, Sylvie, Rose, and every other entanglement they'd had. There was baggage from their friendship, and so much at risk now… what were the rules, here? Would she continue to work at UNIT? Would he? Would they tell her mother? Should she bother trying to find a new flat?

How long had the Doctor felt "ready" to take risks with her? What had catalysed the change? Had he just suddenly, the night before, decided he could rescue her from the pain he had caused? He'd finally admitted that he'd fancied her since they met, but couldn't this still just be a whim, an urge that would soon die? Especially after this "deed" was done?

These were questions to be discussed, or at least thought-about, and given their due, before jumping headlong in to a serious relationship… or into bed. She realised, almost with disappointment, she was in a perfect position to stop this physical interaction moving forward if she chose. If she decided to be sensible, to build the relationship a bit more before making it carnal, all she had to do was stand up.

She didn't _want_ to be sensible, and yet, she couldn't be anything else.

She pulled away and indeed, stood up, nudging the table, still set with the remnants of their dinner behind her.

"You okay?" he asked, surprised

"I'm fine…" she answered, with uncertainty.

He was quiet for a moment, watching her worry. Then he asked, "Too soon?"

She was immeasurably relieved to hear him say that, and yet, almost hoped he would protest.

Almost.

"I think so," she told him. "Sorry. It feels like jumping in blind."

"Okay."

"Even though we know each other well, and we've had our time, and we've been waiting, and God knows I've thought about this… oh, so many times. Everything's changed, and…"

He stood up now as well. "Shh," he told her gently, pulling her in for a hug. "I get it."

"Thanks," she whispered.

"Want me to clean out one of the racquetball courts so you can sleep in it?"

"What an odd question," she chuckled, against his partially-unbuttoned shirt.

He chuckled back. "You know what I mean."

"I do. And no," she said. "I want to be with you. Just not… you know?"

"Okay."

"Not yet."

"Okay."

"Can you cope with that?"

"Of course," he replied, quickly, flippantly, but she could hear the underlying quality of his voice, betraying the fact that his teeth were on-edge.

* * *

***hiding* Everything okay?**

**So, FYI, I'm anticipating chapter 17 being the last, and we _will_ get these two horizontal(ish). All in good(ish) time... so again, please don't hate me. ;-)**

**In any case, don't forget to leave a review, even if you're gritting your teeth! Thank you for reading!**


	15. Chapter 15

**Hi all. Just FYI: I actually finished this story a few days ago, but when I went back and read the final chapters, I realized that the "climax" fell a bit flat. My previous story (Hearts of Calm) had an ending that was called "anticlimactic" by one reviewer, and they were not necessarily wrong. I felt like this story was falling into the same pattern and I felt I could do better (even though the version I've written has Martha being a complete badass), so... **

**...I'm rewriting big chunks of the ending, with new ideas for resolution. It's time-consuming, obviously, therefore, posting these last few chapters may be slow. (Or, it may not, I just don't know yet!) Anyway, I just wanted to share this with you. :-)**

**Now, on with the show. If you'll remember, there was a bit of a near-miss when we last saw our duo... too soon to get physical, they decided. They had also resolved to turn their attention to the Cervovores that had committed the original beheadings in India, specifically to interview the sister of one of the victims.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

FIFTEEN

The morning came slowly… the wine weighed heavily on her. She was entrenched in sleep, in an enveloping haze. But something told her it was time.

It was a Herculean task opening her eyes, or so it felt, and an even greater one rolling over.

But once she realised she was alone, she was jolted awake, and then had no trouble getting into the moment.

Last she'd seen the Doctor, he was sitting on the bed beside her, leaning against the headboard, reading a book in a language that was not human. He'd unlaced and kicked off his shoes, and removed his brown pinstriped jacket, but other than that, he was fully clothed. He had rested his hand on her forehead, and had begun absently to stroke her hair, and this was how she'd drifted off to sleep…

Now, he was most likely in the console room, or the library, or…

She climbed quickly out of her oversize nightshirt, and into jeans, and a fresh tee-shirt. And surely enough, she found him at the controls, dressed in blue, poring over some gruesome photos. She recognised the crime-scene photos from India, the gore left behind by the Indian cell of Cervovores.

"Hacked back into the decapitation slideshow, eh?" she asked, coming up behind him, squeezing his shoulders. "Sounds like a right giggle."

"Yeah, I had a middle-of-the-night epiphany about these photos," he told her. He turned to look her in the eyes. "Otherwise I'd never have left you. I didn't want you to wake up alone, one way or the other."

"It's all right," she told him. She laid her head on his lapel, and he wrapped his arms around her. "Did you sleep at all?"

"A couple hours, yeah," he said. "The wine eventually caught up with me."

"Lucky. I'm just now catching up with the wine," she joked. "So, what was your epiphany?"

"Look at the neck wounds," he told her, stepping away from her, and the screen. "The pathologist noted no kerf marks, but what else do you notice about how the head was removed?"

She squinted at the horrible image, but tried to force down the visceral disgust she felt, and to be an efficient doctor, and an efficient investigator. Tending, in an adrenaline-soaked moment, to a patient with his throat slit, bleeding all over the place… this she had done before. It was her job. Closely and sobrely examining a photo of a body whose head had been ripped off… different story entirely.

"Sorry – I don't see what you're seeing. Is there any way to enlarge this?" she asked, swallowing hard.

He hit a few buttons, and the image became shockingly large, and clear.

"See here?" he asked, showing her with his index finger. "What do you make of that."

"Huh. It looks like teeth marks. I mean, it's really subtle, but… well, no wonder the pathologist didn't see it."

"Yep, exactly. Even if someone did see it, it's not dentition that makes any sense on this planet. I mean, what Earth-based creature with teeth like that could bite off a man's head? It would probably be dismissed as an anomaly, amidst all the torn flesh," he said, a bit maniacally. Then he hit a few more keys, and a new image came up, a different body, different scene, the head removed slightly higher on the neck. He enlarged this image, as well. "And this one?"

"Same thing – teeth marks again," she said, now starting to realise what he was getting at. "Are they all like that?"

"They are, indeed, Dr. Jones," he sang. "Do you know what that means?"

"Well…" she frowned. "I don't remember Sylvie and company having any teeth."

"That's right," he said. "They had those fish heads. Either they have razor-sharp lips, which is not out of the realm of possibility, or their jaws are so strong, they can just go _chomp_, and squeeze the neck apart."

"Ugh," she groaned.

"Given what happened to Gregoire, I'd say it's the former, rather than the latter. Anyway, it almost looks like the India cell is a different species," he continued. "Or at least a different strain, or of a different… ethnic origin?"

"You're wondering if we can use this information to find them?"

"Yes," he confirmed. "I think I might be able to research the species and find out enough about their DNA variations to program the TARDIS, and the sonic, to find them remotely."

"Wow. Okay, how can I help?

"By going to that touristy restaurant today, and interviewing Sanjesh Bhopal's sister," he said. "Might as well get _that_ lead too, if we can. If we can eliminate the need for more time-consuming work, we should try."

"Okay, yeah."

"I'm going to stay in the TARDIS, as long as you're comfortable interviewing this woman on your own."

"I'm fine with that."

"Good. She arrives at work in an hour and a half."

"Okay. Is there coffee?"

"Yep. Check in the wall safe in the bedroom – it's a smart annex on the kitchen. I brewed a pot a few days ago, and it's been in suspended animation. Should still be fresh."

She laughed. "Ah, life with you is bizarre." She kissed him on the cheek, and headed back for the bedroom.

* * *

It was three hours before Anika Bhopal's place of work opened for business to the public, so, Martha attempted to help the Doctor in the library. Mostly she wound up shelving the last stack of books the Doctor had pulled down and not returned, and searching for chairs that wouldn't collapse under their weight.

When the time came, she ventured into the streets of New Delhi, seeking Govinda's Restaurant, near the grandiose Lotus Temple. It was nothing fancy, but it was comfortable, relaxed, and based on the people sitting around her, was palatable to Europeans. It didn't seem able to decide what it wanted to be – a modern, chic, tourist trap, or a rustic, traditional Indian eatery.

Martha came in on her own, and sat sipping tea for a bit, having been invited to visit the buffet at any time. After a while, she did, indeed, visit the buffet, and had a light lunch. When the server offered to refill her teapot, she accepted, and then said, "Sorry to be a bother, but can you tell me, is there anyone named Anika Bhopal who works here?"

"Yes, she works in the kitchen," the woman answered. "She made your tea."

"I wonder if she would be available to talk this afternoon."

"Erm, well… she would have to ask our manager, and I would imagine he would tell her to wait until after the lunch rush, which ends around half-past two."

"Can you let her know I'm here?"

"Who are you?"

"My name is Martha Jones," she said. "I'm investigating her brother's death."

The server looked her over, and Martha could read what she was thinking. Martha didn't look like a local, and if nothing else, her accent had long-since given her away.

"British police are investigating her brother's death?" the server wondered, eyes narrowed.

"Yes," Martha said. "Will you please tell her I'm here?"

"I'll tell her, but I can't promise anything."

"Thank you very much," Martha said.

"Would you like a dessert?"

"Sure," Martha conceded, even though she didn't want it.

"Gajar Ka Hawla?"

"That sounds nice," Martha said, recognizing the name of the dessert. She had spent her teen years accompanying her father in his quest for the best Vindaloo in London. Mostly, it was just an excuse for the two of them to overeat and spend time together, but it had given her solid knowledge of Indian cuisine.

The server returned about five minutes later with a small bowl of bright orange pudding made from carrots, and some news: "Anika doesn't want to talk to you. She says she's already talked to a hundred coppers, and it's got them nowhere, so you should let her mourn in peace already."

"I understand she's grieving, but… please, can you tell her that we are interested in discussing her brother's girlfriend as a person of interest?"

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Devya? You think she killed Sanjesh?"

"Devya, yes," Martha said, filing that name away. "We're not ruling it out, but at the moment, we're just gathering information about her."

Martha had no idea whether what she was saying made any kind of "police sense" or not (she reckoned not), but it was keeping the server interested, which might give her access to Anika.

"Interesting," the server said. "Anika hates her. I'll bet she'll talk to you now. Wait here."

Martha thanked her, then waited.

And as she waited, she heard a voice say, "Martha? Is that really you?"

The voice was male, accented not for Britain nor India, and seemed as though it was feigning surprise to see her.

She knew, even before looking up, to whom the voice belonged.

She sighed. "Hi, François."

"What are you doing in India?" he asked, smiling widely as though he were delighted by her presence, and fascinated by anything she had to say.

The fact was, he very likely knew exactly what she was doing there. He definitely knew that she and the Doctor were gunning for him and his cronies, and yet… here he was. He'd gathered enough energy from her from the shock to turn him humanoid, and now reckoned he'd lay the whammy on her, make her into his prey, even though his previous attempt at flirtation had fallen flat. She had known this might happen, of course, yet she was still surprised by it.

"Oh, you know… working," she shrugged.

"May I join you?" he asked. Then he pulled out the chair across from her and sat down, not waiting for her to answer the question. "I see you're having the Gajar Ka Hawla. It's one of my favourites."

"Is it?" she asked, flatly. "I find that somewhat unexpected, François."

He smiled. "I can see why you might," he said, charmingly. "But the fact is, I'm a big fan of Indian food. Well, obviously."

He spoke with a French accent, and as far as she could tell, this _being_ had nothing in common with her former-Time-Agent friend, but he looked not unlike Jack Harkness. Bright, even features, blue eyes, well-sculpted lips. He looked like a Mediterranean Ken doll, and was undeniably alluring. She was resisting him with no difficulty, because she knew exactly what he was, and what he wanted from her. She was not fooled, and her heart and mind were occupied with the Doctor anyhow. But she did see how someone (especially someone unsuspecting) could be pulled into his charms, and given what Alain and Tom had both said about their physical prowess, she could see how they could be kept ensnared.

"Well, as you can see, I'm already on pudding, so I won't be hanging about much longer," she said. After she said it, she wondered why she bothered making excuses. Why couldn't she just say _you're literally a brain-eating fiend, and I'm getting the hell away from you as soon as I can._

"Erm, hello?" a third voice said. This time the voice was female. Both Martha and François looked up. An attractive young woman stood there, wearing a white cook's uniform. "I'm Anika Bhopal. My friend said you wanted to speak to me about Sanjesh and Devya."

"Yes," Martha said. "Erm, François, would you mind…"

"Hello," François said to Anika. He looked at her as though smitten.

Anika seemed to see him for the first time. She smiled. "Hello there."

"Anika is your name, then?" he asked, getting to his feet. "I'm called François. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, I'm sure."

She offered her hand, and François took it, fondling her fingertips, while never taking his eyes off hers.

"Oh, God," Martha groaned. Then she said, "Hi, Anika, I'm Martha Jones. If you don't mind, I _would _like to discuss your brother."

"Right," Anika said, never looking at Martha.

"We suspect Devya may have aided in his murder."

"Your brother was murdered?" asked François. "That's terrible to hear."

"Yes," Martha said with sarcastic brightness. "Anika's brother was mysteriously beheaded, possibly by someone he was sleeping with. Doesn't that sound heinous?"

"Indeed," François breathed, not responding in any meaningful way to what she had actually said.

"Oh… my God," Martha groaned again, watching the two of them.

"Please, Anika, join us," François said, fetching a chair from another table, and sliding it against the backs of Anika's legs, inviting her to sit, which she did, never taking her besotted gaze away from him.

Martha was fairly certain that François had come here to meet up with her, Martha, in order to begin cultivating some kind of messed-up sexual relationship, and lead her down the same path as Tom and Gregoire, Sanjesh Bhopal, and at least four other unfortunate New Delhi residents. He was either completely oblivious to the fact that she was partnered with the Doctor who clearly knew how to bring him down, or he just didn't know what else to do. It was in his nature, his instinct, to track her now…

But as his humanoid form was probably fairly tenuous at this point, he was desperate, and now latching onto someone else, who was more vulnerable, and clueless about his dangerous wiles.

She could not interview Anika with François sitting here, for several reasons. So she actually took a deep breath and forced herself to touch his arm. "François, would you please give us some privacy? I really need to have a chat with Anika, girl-to-girl."

François seemed, at that point, to snap out of an Anika-induced reverie, and turn his attention back to Martha. To her surprise (and disgust), he did not seem to be giving up on her either.

"Of course, _mon amour_," he said, squeezing her hand. "Tell me, ladies, would you fancy a drink later, just the three of us? Sort of an intimate rendezvous for a trio of lovely people, looking for some freedom in the city?"

_Wow_, Martha thought. _This would be funny, if it weren't so dangerous._

"François, I think…" Martha began.

"I would love to," Anika interrupted. "My shift is over at six, just before the dinner rush."

"I'll be back then," François told her, with a wink. "Martha, interested?"

She gave him a faraway stare, with her eyes narrowed, and then asked, "Seriously?"

"All right, fair enough," he said calmly. "I'll catch up with you later, then. Anika, until this evening."

With that, he left, and Anika watched him go.

And what she was left with was a very uneasy feeling. Anika was now in terrible danger, if she and the Doctor didn't act fast. Or, at the very least, didn't act before six o'clock this evening.

Martha briefly thought about telling her the whole story of the Cervovores, and confessing that Devya had probably been one, and that François was trying to victimise _her_ now… but she thought better of it. She'd come off sounding like a nutter to the average person, and it wouldn't help. Anika might not be able to resist François anyway, and they wouldn't be any closer to finding the India cell, or taking down Jean-Marc, so…

"All right, I'll try to make this quick," Martha said.

Anika snapped-to just then, and said, "Yes, hello. Sorry. Can you please tell me your name again?"

"Martha Jones."

"And you're with… what, Scotland Yard?"

"I'm with UNIT," she said. "Still a British government agency, still investigative, but a lot weirder than Scotland Yard and a lot less well-known."

She thought the truth might be a nice touch, even though UNIT, as far as she knew, didn't even have the Cervovores on their radar.

"Okay, what do you need to know?" Anika asked.

"Let's start with Devya's surname."

"Navuluri," Anika said, then spelled it for Martha, who then wrote it down.

"Have you seen her since your brother's death?"

"Yes. She has come round several times to deliver things that he left at her flat."

"Where is her flat, do you know?"

"It's right downtown – I don't know the address exactly, I've never been there."

"Why do you dislike her so much? What's unusual about her?" Martha asked.

* * *

And so it went. Martha received probably _just enough_ information about Devya (including an assumed surname and profession) that they could probably find her, and then presumably skulk about as they do, until Devya unwittingly led them to the nest… but that could wait.

François and Anika were the task at-hand now.

* * *

**Uh-oh! An unsuspecting Indian woman is now in the line of fire. What can the Doctor and Martha do about it? Heh.**

**By the way, thanks for all the reviews reassuring me that you're not reeling too hard from the "tease" in the previous chapter. It was good to know that you understood Martha's actions there.**

**I hope that you will understand Martha's actions in the chapters to come, just as well! **

**Please keep the reviews coming! They motivate me, to no end! Thanks so much for reading. :-)**


	16. Chapter 16

**Ever since Sylvie and the Doctor met, in the first chapter, and all along, I've tried to make it clear that she fears him, in spite of what she keeps saying. This chapter will answer the question of _why... _for all of us, including the Doctor. (I bring this up because, I'm hoping you won't feel I'm adding a "piece to the chessboard" too late in the game!)**

**This chapter will also answer part of the question of what to do about their little François problem. ;-) **

**Enjoy!**

**Oh, and uh, NSFW. Save this one for home!**

* * *

SIXTEEN

When she returned to the TARDIS, Martha didn't actually expect to find the Doctor in the console room – and she was right. He was still in the library, researching the genetic diversity of the Cervovores, especially as it pertained to dentition.

When she arrived in the library, he was sitting not far from the door, at a table spread over with books. His chair was pulled out by a metre or so, so that he could see various tomes he'd opened and displayed on the floor.

He said, without even saying hello. "Guess what. I found out that Sylvie's group comes from the largest continent on the planet, whereas a different group, with quite a few physical differences, comes from a southern island. Their genetic makeup is slightly different, though they are the same species, and you might be interested to know, the southern island group has giant, disturbing teeth, see?"

He turned the book at her, so she could see the etching he was looking at.

"Yeah, that's disturbing. Doctor, I've got something…"

"And," he interrupted, not having heard her at all. He reached into a pile on the table, and pulled forth a black and red volume, written in Gallifreyan. "Martha, did you ever wonder why Sylvie recoiled from me, almost from the moment we met the other night at Okeanós? And in that hotel room with Tom? And why she's been so damn keen to let me know she's not afraid of me?"

Martha momentarily forgot about her François/Anika problem, and asked, "Actually, yeah, sort of. But you know, Tom asked about it, and I just told him I'm sort of used to _beings_ all over the universe knowing you, and knowing to stay the hell out of your way."

"Well, I found a volume of Gallifreyan history all about take-over attempts of our planet, and guess what: the Cervovores have a whole chapter all to themselves."

"They tried this rubbish with your people? The shagging and the decapitating, and the assimilating?"

"Less shagging, more work with energy-converters. It's less messy, it's quicker, and Time Lords don't get freaked out by it the way a human might. They're only _not _using them on Earth because it would be insanely conspicuous."

"Right, I remember you telling me that."

"Anyway, the pressure of assimilating Time Lord biology and brain function turned out to be too much for them. Over the course of a few days, the Cervovore who had taken a Time Lord head would begin to burn up. It was a slow, horrible death, and the Time Lords decided to let it take its course, to teach them a lesson."

"They decided to _let it take its course?_ What, so… sacrifice their own?"

"Yep," he said. "And no regeneration when the head and brain are gone. It's _nasty _business, this. So, once the Cervovores realised what was happening, that assimilating the Time Lords was not only too much for their bodies to handle, but also that the Time Lords themselves were _ruthless_, they ran off with their tails between their legs."

"And you didn't know about this history?"

"Well, in reading it, it occurred to me that I did know _parts_ of the story, without knowing much about the species involved."

"Okay, well, does this give us an advantage that we didn't have before?"

"Not from an angle I can see at this moment. But that could change. Knowledge is power," he said to her, now on his feet, bending and shuffling stacks of books about on the floor.

"Great. So, here's some more knowledge for you: François turned up."

He stopped moving immediately, stood upright, and said, "How do you mean?"

"You know how I mean," she said, getting between him and the table. She talked fast now, as though channeling _him._ "He found me in bloody India, Doctor, just the way Sylvie found Tom in Amsterdam and the DRC, and everywhere else he went . But I know too much to bite, so within a minute or two, he got under the skin of Anika Bhopal, and now we have five hours before her shift is over, and that's assuming she doesn't choose to knock off early, and I think the odds are pretty good that she will."

"Wait… her shift… what?"

Without answering, she reached forward and grabbed a book out of his hands, and threw it aside. Then she grabbed him by both lapels, into a hard, confused kiss.

She pulled back momentarily. "Do you have the sonic screwdriver on you?"

"Yes," he answered, breathlessly.

"Good. Get it ready."

She forced another kiss.

"I thought you said it was too soon," he muttered, against her lips.

"Shush," she scolded. "Just… shush."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!"

Still a little addled, he reached inside his jacket and pulled out the sonic, and laid it in the open spine of a book near Martha. Once he did that, the jacket itself came off, and was thrown onto the chair behind him. With their mouths still locked together and now searching one another, Martha deftly untied his burgundy tie, then snapped it away from his body, depositing it on the floor. Next her fingers went, shaking, desperate, for the buttons of his light blue shirt.

"Wait," he said, stopping her hands after three buttons. "How much time do we have, did you say?"

"Five hours or less."

"Why are we in such a hurry?"

"What if she tells her boss in the next hour that she's ill, and he sends her home? She could meet up with him…"

"_Could_," he pointed out. "But remember, he can't track her yet."

"What if he waits for her outside the restaurant?"

"He'll plan on standing there all day?"

"He could…"

"Let's assume it will take her an hour to wriggle out of her shift, if she chooses to do so, and then it'll take her and François another hour to find each other," he said. "And… you think they'll go straight to the shag?"

"Remember what happened when Tom first met Sylvie? Twenty minutes, and they're in the loo, rattling the tiles loose."

"Well anyway, it should give us a couple of hours."

"Doctor…"

"I am not rushing this," he insisted, taking both of her cheeks in his hands. "Even if they're together right now, Anika is not in any mortal danger today, and vanquishing a bunch of brain-eating aliens quickly and cleanly is not more important than _this, _with us. Okay?"

Before she could say anything else, he had covered her mouth once again with his, but everything about him, and the interaction itself, was less frantic and urgent. His tongue pushed inside her mouth rather confidently, but without the frenetic energy he'd had a moment ago. She had no choice but to let his measured lust lull her, and slow her down.

Though, it did not slow her heartbeat nor her own fire… just delayed it. And she knew ultimately this would make it all the more explosive in the end, and _that_ was precisely the point. Perhaps Anika, François, Jean-Marc, and all others _could_ wait. Oh, but, if they could beat François to the shag, then the rest of this fight would be so much smoother…

But the Doctor had taken it out of her hands. When it came to how and when to go after the alien foe, she deferred to him, and she was all too happy to do so.

His hands moved down to her sides, now gripping her ribs possessively as he probed her mouth. For a few moments, this was how he stayed for a few long, leisurely moments, before venturing down over her bum, and pulling her pelvis taut against him. She could feel that he was becoming as aroused as she, which caused her to moan involuntarily, and a fresh, warm tide of _want_ flowed over her.

She felt deliciously frustrated now; last night's wine-soaked tryst was to be too soon, but now that their coupling was a means to an end, she had resigned herself (hardly reluctantly) to it. And based on the François-Anika situation, she had been counting on a hard, frantic fuck that would rattle the table's legs loose. It was not to be – not just now, anyway. She reckoned they'd have plenty of time for that sort of thing…

He slid both hands into the back pockets of her jeans, and left them there for the next couple of minutes while he gave her a breathless, searching snog that pressed the tops of her thighs between him and the edge of the table behind her, and her composure to the edge. When his mouth moved down the side of her face and neck, and his lips and tongue planted themselves, and danced near just above where her shoulder begins, his hands moved as well. He sucked and nipped at a sensitive bit of her neck, and made her moan and squirm against him, while his thumbs slid into the tight space between the waistband of her jeans, and her flesh.

Her head spun. She was drunk with desire, little surges of it each time he moved his hands, or pressed his pelvis against her, or she heard him breathe raggedly into her ear, or give a little grunt. She felt she was swimming… but just barely. It was more like a very pleasant drowning.

And it was almost a lifeline when he moved his fingers round to the front of her body, still grasping her waistband, and unfastened the button, followed by the zip. He pushed the garment down below her hips, then she instinctively hopped up onto the table, pushing several books out of the way, while he knelt to remove her sandals, and pull her jeans all the way off.

He reached up and looped his fingers through the hip-band of her knickers, and when he did, she gasped just a little, and looked at him with wide, surprised eyes.

He stopped, and looked up at her, but did not move his hands away. "All right?"

This moment made it real. He was about to remove the small slip of cloth that would expose her to him. And not just her body. With this gesture, he would find out how impatient she was, and how aroused, unstable, slippery and blind with lust he could render her, without _that _much effort. He would know how much she wanted him, and how long she'd been waiting for this moment…

… and _she _would know without a doubt how much of a farce her "engagement" to Tom Milligan had been.

"Yeah," she breathed. "Definitely all right."

She planted her hands on the table and lifted her bum, allowing him to pull a soaked pair of knickers down over her knees and ankles, and off.

Still kneeling, he wrapped his arms around her waist, and pulled her suddenly to the edge of the table. She was startled, and reached out behind her for leverage, now brushing away several more books, some of which hit the floor with a messy, papery _thud. _

He pressed his nose and mouth into her stomach, and took in her scent. He moaned with the heady combination of perfume, sweat, laundry detergent, and sex. It was intoxicating. He pulled her tee-shirt up just a bit, and planted teasing kisses below her navel, and listened to her sigh and groan a bit. Her thighs tried to press together and envelop his head, but he coaxed them open again, and took his time, making his way down further and further, until his tongue met her clit, and there was no turning back.

She half-yelped, half-moaned, and seemed to lose all the strength in her body. Her knees dropped down over his shoulders. Her vision blurred, and no words would come. She had forgotten every syllable of every language she knew. Her body felt like it was going to either become a bolt of lighting and blow up the room at any second, or a puddle of grease that would seep into the wood and paper and carpet. The air around her seemed to change into soup… and he had only licked her once, lightly.

Soon enough, he licked that sensitive inch of flesh again. And then again. Then again and again, over and over and over, until she was practically crying with the intensity of it. She was vaguely aware of him reaching up onto the table and taking something off of it, just before he sucked her clit into his mouth, and pulled…

He was shoving her over a precipice with his mouth, and it was exquisite. Her whole body filled with heat and electricity. She cried out breathlessly, and hissed short, taut encouragements at him, while the heat and electricity came to a head and it all exploded. She gave a high scream as her body loosed its pleasure, and vaguely, she heard the sound of the sonic screwdriver while orgasm was ravaging her senses.

She panted and made high-pitched exhales while she recovered from the blast, and he brought her down somehow – she was barely conscious for it. He then sat back on his heels, and stroked her legs, careful not to stimulate her too much…

Finally, she found the wherewithal to look down at him.

"Did you get an energy signature?" she asked.

His voice wavered when he spoke. "Yes… do you want to stop?"

"Do you?"

He looked at her blankly for a moment, then smiled slightly, and said, "No," as though humouring her. "I don't. I've never _not _wanted to do something so much in my life."

She smiled, and slid off the table, joining him on the floor. Her hands dived into unbuttoning his shirt the rest of the way. He shrugged it off, then asked, "Here? Are you sure?"

"What does it matter where?"

"Well, you know… carpet burns," he said, smirking.

"Worth it."

Martha set about pushing more books out of the way, as well as a chair, and made just enough room for them on the floor beside the table. She backed up into the spot, peeled off her tee-shirt, and he came forward with her. She lay back, and reached for the hook of his trousers. The clasp and zip came undone almost without any encouragement, and she helped him push the waist band of his trousers and pants down. But they were snug, and he still had his shoes on, so to get them off completely would have wasted precious seconds, the resolve for which he no longer had…

"Far enough," he growled, removing her hand from his clothing, and pinning it to the floor beside her shoulder. He buried his mouth once again in her neck, and had to hold back to keep from biting, and causing her pain. Instead, he groaned her name, licked behind her ear, and it was enough to make her legs spread apart. In this one moment, if he hadn't been before, he became completely driven by desire, all thoughts dulled by sharp longing.

Case in point, later, he reckoned that he probably should have checked her face one more time, just to make sure there was no hint of doubt, or _it's too soon_. He probably should have asked if she was ready for him. At the very least, he probably should have pushed inside her a bit more gently than he did…

But he'd already done his asking, his being cautious, so none of it occurred to him again, because he'd given himself permission just to want her. And it became the most important thing in the universe – wanting her. He wanted to be buried in her, lost in the thrill of her, thrusting into her, feeling release while inside of her, and this was all he could think of. With her hand still pinned to the floor, he followed every bit of _want_ brewing inside of him. He gave a hard, dissolute thrust, and it was done: his cock was totally engulfed in her… and the pleasure was so great, he could not stop himself from pulling back and doing it again.

Her head tilted back, and she moaned, her mouth slack, her eyes drawn to the ceiling.

And when he began to thrust again and again, tears came to her eyes, and she seemed unable to make any noise. He did bother to wonder in these moments what she was thinking and feeling, but the question was answered when she wrapped her legs around him, grasped his arm with her free hand, dug her fingernails in and panted the word, "Harder." He obliged, then uttered some smug observation of what was about to happen to her, and then it did… she came again, came hard, only this time he could _feel _it. He relished looking her in the eye while he shoved the explosion through her.

He let go of her pinned-down hand, and stopped for a few moments, waiting for the orgasm to subside, for the sensitivity to abate a bit. After thirty seconds or so, he began again, knowing her sensitivity was not _completely_ gone, but just present enough to cause delicious little yelps while he continued to give her thrust after thrust.

These electric movements rendered her blind for a few minutes, but eventually, she blinked back into herself, and began to watch him intently, watch his face and letting it drive her pleasure. She smiled slyly at him, reached up and took his head in both of her hands, and pulled down. He went to his elbows, and with her mouth a centimetre from his ear, she whispered, "Fill me up. Now."

He had had every intention of seeing this thing through for her, shattering her good and loud at least a couple more times before taking his own release… but now he knew his plan was foiled. He was finished. Those four little words had spurred him so far forward, there would be no turning back. His body went from aroused to insistent, and even his voice changed from a breathless chant to a crackling, out-of-control grunt-like noise.

And that was how it sounded when he obeyed her, and filled her up, blurring his vision, and pouring so much tension and passion and years of pent-up lust into her, that he couldn't keep his head above ground. He rested his forehead on the floor beside her as he twitched and came, and gave the last few thrusts, before finally exhaling.

He gave an amazed, exasperated curse as the electricity in his body subsided, and Martha responded, "I know, right?"

They both laughed, and he gathered his strength and managed to pull back up and away from her, long enough to push more books aside, before lying down beside her.

* * *

**Well, you know what I'm gonna say now, right? :-) Looking forward to hearing from you, and thanks for reading!**


	17. Chapter 17

**All righty - hopefully you'll find this chapter rather exciting... I did my best!**

**If you'll recall, in the previous chapter our heroes finally hit the sheets together... or rather, the library floor. Martha's energy signature was needed in order to stop François, and the easiest way to get it was... well, you know. And in the heat of the moment, Martha indeed heard the sonic screwdriver working, presumably reading her energy signature.**

**We also learned the reasons behind Sylvie's fear of the Doctor all along... hmmm.**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

SEVENTEEN

Many things about the TARDIS' library had been poorly designed, including the shelves, which bowed under the weight of the books, and the unnecessarily labyrinthine organisation system. However, the intercom and console interface in the library did not fit into this category. It was easily accessible from just about anywhere in the stacks, allowed them to see the TARDIS' "radar" and databases, and allowed them to hear the alert that came in, even while they were otherwise occupied.

Their romp on the floor of the library had been something of a gamble against time, and the smoothness of the Cervovores, though the Doctor had insisted that _this_ was more important than beating François to the sheets with Anika Bhopal. In the past, the TARDIS had been able to give the Doctor alerts when one of the victims of India's cell of Cervovores lost their head.

And as they lay on the floor, catching their breath, an alert came through, and Martha sat upright. "Shit!"

"No, no, relax," he said. "It can't be what we think it is. Can it? No…"

He stood up with some difficulty, and fumbled with pulling up his still half-on trousers, as he walked over to a control panel on a wall nearby. He squinted at the information coming through.

"Another head? Please tell me it's not another head," Martha begged, now standing up, and getting back into her clothes.

"No, it's…" he muttered. There was a pause. "Almost worse!"

"How could it be worse?"

"It's worse because it's starting to feel like Chinese water torture," he muttered.

"Doctor, don't get funny now."

"What? Oh, well, _of course_ it's not worse than someone getting their head ripped off, but look," he said, pointing to a line on the screen that was moving up and down like an erratic heartbeat, and seemed to be gaining strength.

She stumbled over, pulling her shirt over her head. "What is that?"

"It's the bit of the Cervovore's power centre in Nîmes that the TARDIS has hold of," he said.

"Oh!" Martha exclaimed. "So, what are they doing now?"

"It looks like they're getting the electroshock wands revved up," he said. "We can guess why."

"We can't have Sylvie becoming humanoid again, Doctor," she warned.

"No, we can't," he agreed. He went back to the messy table where he had been sitting, studying, before Martha walked in.

He searched for something, on the floor. He looked under books, kicked things out of the way, until he located the sonic screwdriver, which had been discarded carelessly when desire had taken him by storm. And, he located his shirt and jacket, then searched another moment before asking, "Do you see my tie?"

Martha waded in, and spotted it, sticking out from under an overturned volume that had fallen mostly apart.

"Here it is," she said, picking it up, and handing it to him.

"Good," he said, taking her by the hand now. "Let's go."

* * *

As they walked down the hall, he reassembled his outfit.

Martha said, "Doctor, there _has_ to be a way to use the Time Lord/Cervovore history against them."

"There is," he told her.

"You said you couldn't see it from your angle."

"That was twenty minutes ago. This is now."

"Well, are you planning on sharing it with me?"

They were interrupted by more alarms blaring, drowning out their voices… and thoughts.

By the time they reached the console room, he had completely re-dressed and looked every bit his dapper self, as he angrily approached the controls and killed the alarms.

"All right, all right, I get it," he said to the TARDIS. "Back to the nest – I know. Just give us a mo' would you?"

Martha sighed. "You know, I like the south of France, but after this is over, I'm not going to want to go back for a long time."

"Oi," he protested, adjusting a few levers and toggles and whatnot. "You're only seeing an underground carpark… and not even that. A dank room off to the side of an underground carpark."

"I know, but… how about Tahiti? Can we go there and hide out for a while?"

He smiled. "I'm willing to give that a go."

With that, he took the sonic screwdriver and fixed it into the console. Data flew by on the screen. It was in Gallifreyan, but she reckoned she didn't have to be told what he was doing. He'd taken an energy signature when they were in mid-tryst, and now, he was using it.

He threw gears into place, and the TARDIS made its unmistakable sound, materialising once more within the nest of the Cervovores… in a dank room off to the side of an underground carpark. In Nîmes. Again.

When the TARDIS stopped, they could hear Sylvie outside, screaming bloody murder all anew.

The Doctor stalked down the ramp, and Martha trailed after him. He threw open the door, and gave a full-throated, "Oh, come on! Don't you _ever _learn?"

"Time Lord!" Sylvie exclaimed. She was standing in front of the power centre with an electrical wand, while Jean-Marc fiddled with the controls themselves. He seemed to be panicking, moving back and forth, trying to get the power centre to cooperate. "You foul, loathsome…"

At Sylvie's feet, there was a man of about fifty, dressed in a maintenance jumpsuit, with Nîmes' city insignia. He seemed too frightened to say anything, but rather, just kept looking back and forth between the grey, bulbous alien bien called Sylvie, and the Doctor. Though he was not speaking, the man could not stop his voice from quavering.

"You sound surprised," the Doctor said to Sylvie, exasperated. "Why on Earth would you be _surprised_? You knew my TARDIS was dialled into your thing-a-majig over there. And you _knew_ I'd know if you tried to get that stupid shocky thing up and running again… I mean, what is the matter with you? It hasn't even been forty-eight hours! You can't be this daft… you must just be blind desperate."

"Back off, this is not your business," she hissed at him. "This isn't even your planet! And you, Martha Jones, can go _foutre le camp_! I've had quite enough of you!"

"Right back at you," Martha responded.

That was when they all heard the sound of the electrical equipment getting revved, a clean, crisp, high-pitched, wave ramping up. Jean-Marc had apparently activated it.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," the Doctor warned Sylvie, who was winding up to shock the maintenance man.

"Why? Because you think you can make it reverberate back on me?" she asked, in a mocking tone. "Please."

"I can!" he insisted. "I _can_ make it reverberate back on you! It was just yesterday I told Martha, all I've got to do is reverse the polarity, and I'm brilliant at that! Remember Martha, when I said that?"

"I do remember," Martha responded. "And I've seen you do it! And Sylvie, trust me, if you do this, it will hurt. A hell of a lot. I know because your friend François did it to me, remember?"

"I'm giving you fair warning, Sylvie," the Doctor said. "Dr. Jones and I, we've already distilled an energy signature with my sonic device, and I've already plugged it into your power centre, and that will be the key to your undoing. Again, I'm brilliant at polarity-reversal. As it happens, I'm also brilliant at augmenting reverb. Took down an evolutionary reject in Southwark Cathedral with that one… it was pretty spectacular. Believe me when I say, that shock will come back on you, _and then some_."

Sylvie and Jean-Marc both laughed.

"_The key to our undoing?_" Jean-Marc mocked. "You mean you've got the key to a minor setback for François!"

"Hey, now you mention it, where is that rascal, François?" the Doctor asked, trying to make it seem like a whimsical question.

"If he's reverted, he'll be on his way back," Sylvie answered.

"I dunno, it's been several minutes," the Doctor warned. "What's he doing?"

"He's probably having trouble finding a place to teleport stably," Jean-Marc offered.

"Or…" Sylvie sang, cutting off Jean-Marc's confused stuttering. "The Time Lord is bluffing us somehow."

"Care to risk it?" the Doctor asked her. "Do you really want to find out if the _Time Lord _threat is real or a lie?"

The Doctor and Martha both saw a noticeable flicker of uncertainty cross the faces of their adversaries. The Cervovores covered it up, but it was too late.

Martha frowned. It was beginning to feel like the Doctor had something else up his sleeve, other than just reducing François to his original form. If this conversation could be believed, and François should be here now, had the Doctor _actually_ extracted her energy signature from the power centre, then… what was going on? Was François still out there somewhere, looking the dashing Frenchman, and seducing Anika Bhopal _right now?_

The Doctor had made a threat earlier that he would scrub the power centre clean, then send a message back to their home planet, making them think that their "emissaries" had not done their job. He had confessed to Martha that he couldn't actually pull this off without insinuating too much of the TARDIS into the Cervovores' power centre, and sickening the vessel unduly… it had been a bluff. So, was he bluffing again? He was daring Sylvie to find out just that, but… well, was he?

She rather wished he had clued her in, but realised that he may have tried, but been interrupted by one or more blaring alarms.

"We should also mention that we've done the math," Sylvie said to the Doctor, delightedly switching gears. "According to our calculations, even if you _have_ set our electrical wands to echo the shock back upon us, it doesn't mean that _none _of it reaches the victim. It just means that it takes a hundred times more voltage, and/or shock-time, to make sure that the victim's energy signature is carried through the electrical current."

"Damn," he said to Martha. "I was hoping they wouldn't work that out."

But his voice was flat, almost sarcastic. Martha could hear the insincerity…

Jean-Marc laughed again, and reported, "The victim will barely feel the shock, but his energy will be sapped slowly over time."

"You'll kill him," the Doctor said, earnestly.

The maintenance man gasped audibly, his breath quavering.

"Indeed, we might," Sylvie agreed. "But a girl's got to plan for the future, and this is efficient, you see, because his death may mean less work for me later on! And one human death… honestly, our objective was to basically wipe out the species anyway."

The Doctor took a couple of steps forward. "Sylvie, Jean-Marc, listen to reason. One more time, I'm telling you: don't try to shock him. If you pull the trigger on that wand, the consequences will be much bigger than you realise. I'm giving you a chance to retreat in peace. Just go home. That's all you have to do. Leave this planet alone. I won't even stipulate that you take your Indian friends with you – I'll deal with them. Just go."

Jean-Marc's face went to a sympathetic, soulful expression, one that Martha distinctly remembered seeing François make, when he was trying to win her over. He crossed the room, holding the Doctor's eye. Eventually, Cervovore and Time Lord were practically nose-to-nose, and Jean-Marc rather looked as though he was going to say something. He seemed to want them to believe he was beginning to have a change of heart, though no-one was fooled

And then a huge boom filled the room, along with a blinding flash of light. Martha shrieked in surprise, and reached out and grasped the Doctor's arm, hard. It was like lightning had struck five feet away.

Jean-Marc burst out laughing, and a scream from Sylvie joined the cacophony of unpleasant noises ricocheting off the walls.

Another flash of light exploded in the room, and then another.

Martha's heart was racing. "What's happening?" she couldn't help but ask, as the room seemed to fill with something like a strobe light, and a second clap of deafening thunder rolled through.

When she looked at the Doctor, he was standing calmly with his hands in his pockets, watching Jean-Marc. The latter stopped laughing when the second _boom_ filled the space, and began looking back and forth between Sylvie and the Doctor.

Sylvie was caught mid-shock. The current had paralysed her, and she could not remove her finger from the trigger causing the voltage to continue to flow through her. She was glowing white, stiff, and somehow screaming.

The maintenance man cursed, and in a panic, tried to crawl away from Sylvie, and the wand she had jammed into his arm before pulling the trigger. When he was ten feet away, he looked back and watched the show in horror.

"Let go of the trigger!" Jean-Marc cried out. "Sylvie, let go!"

"She can't, you dolt!" the Doctor insisted.

"Well, make it stop! This isn't fair!" the Cervovore screamed in the Doctor's face.

"Oh, _now_ you think something terrible is happening?" the Doctor shouted back, amidst the disorienting light flashes, a third horrible thunderclap, and the continuous cry of pain from Sylvie. "I thought you weren't scared of me! I thought you were fine with whatever I _thought_ I could do to you! I thought the shock to Sylvie was going to be worth it, and there would just be a minor setback to François."

Jean-Marc practically snarled at him, "You infern…. Infern….!"

"What?" the Doctor asked, cupping his ear. "Didn't quite catch that. Infern…?"

"Infernal Time Lord!" Jean-Marc spat. He seemed surprised at himself afterwards. He frowned confusedly.

"Yeah, you know me, don't you?" the Doctor asked him, getting nose-to-nose with him again, amidst the flashing and the booming and screaming. "You know what I can do. You've known forever how clever I am, and that your kind _can't handle me!"_

"Arrogant basssssssss…." Jean-Marc tried, but could not finish. His face contorted a bit.

"Let's not resort to name-calling just because you know you're buggered now."

"We will have this pleh!"

"This what?"

"This pleh. This plan. This Janet," Jean-Marc said. Then he screamed in frustration, stomping hard with one foot, "Goddamn it! This _planet_! We will have this planet!"

"Ah, see, no you won't. And you know it. Your speech betrays it. You know I've done something, and you and your friend over there, you tried to call my bluff, and well… you've royally cocked things up!"

"What did you d…d...?" Jean-Marc screamed at the Doctor. "What! Did! Y-y-oooooooooooooo…"

"I tried to warn you!"

* * *

Amidst the two of them shouting at each other, the surreal spectacle of Jean-Marc losing his faculties, the horrid opera of noises and light tearing through the already bizarre little room, Martha had crossed the room and begun to help the maintenance man.

He resisted her at first, but then she said, "Let me help you. I'm a doctor – are you hurt?"

"No," he said, eyes wide. "But I've… erm…"

He cast his gaze toward his lower half, and Martha could see that he had wet himself.

"It's all right," she told him. "Let's get you out of the way."

They stumbled over the giant tangle of power cords in the middle of the room, but tried to stay out of sight of Jean-Marc.

Martha watched Sylvie, still stiff, still glowing, still screaming in pain.

She had no idea how long this needed to go on, in order for the Doctor to accomplish what he needed, but she reckoned it would be unduly cruel to let this state of affairs continue longer than necessary. Sylvie was, after all, a living, breathing being. Plus, she thought of Tom, and having to tell this story later…

"You work maintenance for the city?" she asked the man.

"Yes," he said. "They grabbed me when I was doing my half-hourly check of the carpark."

"Does that mean you know where they keep cleaning implements? Brooms, mops, things like that?"

He pointed toward a door. "Through there, immediately to your left. Broom cupboard."

"Okay," she said to him. "Stay here, don't move. If he turns, hide, if at all possible. You can hide inside that blue box, but don't let him see you go in there, have you got that?"

* * *

"I tried to warn you!" the Doctor said, now seeing Martha running across the space, and through the door on his right.

He had no idea what she was up to, but he did have an enormous amount of trust in her.

"_What did you do?"_ Jean-Marc repeated, screaming so hard, managing a complete sentence this time. his voice cracked, and it hurt the Doctor's ears. "I'm… I'm…"

"Slowing down? Feeling addled? Maybe a bit ill? Funny, that. What's a Cervovore to do?"

"You fucking…. You…." Eventually, Jean-Marc's lower lip drooped, and his voice went dull, with a test-signal sound, not words.

"Several times, I tried to warn you! I gave you a chance, and you laughed at me! Well, that was daft, now, wasn't it? The Cervovores and the Time Lords have a history, Jean-Marc! You know it, Sylvie knows it. And yet, you test me. You test my patience. You push me to _this!"_ he said, gesturing toward the twitching blob that was Sylvie. "And you and I both know that she will never be the same again. Your species' molecular integrity is on the flimsy side on the best day… what happens when you shock everything loose, with this kind of force? Not to mention… you."

"M… m… me."

"Yeah," the Doctor said, cheerfully. "Do me a favour. Say _supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. _Just once. Go on!"

At that point, Martha came back through the door with a broom in her hand, and she approached Sylvie. His eyes followed her, and he saw what she was going to do. Jean-Marc tried to turn, but he was too slow, his faculties were not responding in time.

"Doctor?" she asked across the room.

"Do it," he told her.

She used the long wooden handle to jostle the electrical wand out of Sylvie's hand. The apparatus fell to the floor. The flashing lights halted, as did the thunder, and Sylvie stopped screaming. Immediately, her entire body sagged, and she now looked like a version of herself that was in the middle of melting.

"Time Lord!" her voice came, crackling across the confined space, almost as loud as thunder.

"That was an awfully big reverb for one little shock-wand, wouldn't you say?" the Doctor asked her. "I mean thunder, lightning… and blimey, Sylvie, look what it did to you."

"You're a dizzzz!" she snarled. "You..."

"I'm a what?" he asked.

"A dizzz… a d…" she tried. "A disease!"

"Oh, that! Well, yes, to you lot, I am. Can't deny that, can I? I told you I was good at reversing polarity and making things echo in a big way."

Martha crossed the room again, so that she could help the maintenance man to his feet. He was not physically hurt, but he _was_ probably in shock, and would need medical attention nevertheless.

"Pest!" Sylvie shouted.

"Again, yeah," the Doctor conceded. "But at least I'm consistent. Well, consistent-ish. I mean, I'll admit that I did bluff you before, with that stuff about being able to scrub out your power centre of any trace of an energy signature, and sending the signal back to your home planet."

"Ah noo noo!" Jean-Marc shouted, as though he had marbles in his mouth. The tone and cadence of the non-words sounded to Martha like _I knew it,_ though he didn't have the wherewithal to say it.

At that point, Jean-Marc giggled ridiculously, at nothing in particular.

The Doctor watched him out of the corner of his eye, while addressing Sylvie. "Okay, well… the first part was a bluff. I can't really scrub out your power centre without damaging my TARDIS. But the thing about sending signals back to your home planet, that's the sort of thing that TARDISes do best! Apart from travelling through time, that is."

"Waa yoo nowt?" the slack-jawed Jean-Marc attempted. His face contorted again.

"What am I on about? Oh, Jean-Marc. Does it really matter at this stage? And you know what? I've got to mention it again: where _is_ François?" the Doctor asked, ignoring the question. He looked around the room, feigning worry and confusion. "I mean, if I fed in Dr. Jones' energy signature so that I could isolate and extract it from your power stores, then… yeah, he should be here by now. So what gives?"

"What the hell's he doing?" the maintenance man asked Martha, at a whisper.

"Sshh," she said, rather than answer. "We have to trust him.

"Why?"

"Because we do," she told him with finality.

A faraway noise could now be heard. It was an otherworldly buzzing, and it seemed to be getting closer and closer.

The Doctor had heard it too, and was now sauntering about the room triumphally, and Martha could read the smug victory in his voice. "François, François, where are you? Why, it's almost as if I didn't feed in, nor isolate nor extract Dr. Jones' energy signature, isn't it? He's probably still out there, still all handsome and humanoid, maybe even shagging someone new, totally clueless as to what's happening. Totally clueless about _everything_, soon enough."

The sound became louder and louder, and once again, the small space was filled with a deafening din, and yet more lights.

"What?" Sylvie cried out, realising what was coming. "No! No!"

"It's almost as if I fed in _something else_, isn't it? But if not Dr. Jones' energy signature, then what? Or, should I ask, _then whose?_"

"Oo din!" Jean-Marc growled.

"Oh, yes I did!"

Jean-Marc laughed for no good reason… again.

The Doctor continued, "And that big, big reverb we just felt a few minutes ago… well, _that_ felt almost big enough to echo through the cosmos, didn't it? Maybe even to other planets! Wow!"

"You couldn't ha…ha… haaaaaaa…" Syvlie attempted.

"Why couldn't I?" asked the Doctor, his arms out in a wide, whimsical shrug. "You lot are too daft, and too stubborn, to leave this planet on your own. Sylvie, you called me a disease. Well… on your planet, that's almost true, isn't it?"

"Oh, no…" she said, her voice now trembling.

"You feel it, don't you?" he asked her. "Been feeling it for a few minutes now. Impeded speech, confusion… finding things inappropriately funny. Well, I'll tell you what's _not_ funny: when a Time Lord's energy signature gets into a Cervovore. _That _is… well, more like a disease."

"Clever, clever," Martha whispered.

The light in the room became blinding, and almost palpable. It was almost as if they could reach out and grab it.

And then the light itself seemed to speak. "Emissaries of the Nemausus Order," it said. "Your power centre has been contaminated with the presence of an energy signature not of this planet. It has been identified as Gallifreyan, and deemed deadly. Your individual telepathic fields are contaminated as well, and the presence of this type of energy has been known to destroy emissaries. Therefore, you will be fully divested, effective immediately."

Jean-Marc and Sylvie (such as she was) looked at each other blankly, their coherence taking another serious downward turn.

Martha reckoned that if they had their faculties in order, they would be protesting, and railing at her and the Doctor, but as it was…

They stared far away as an even brighter light enveloped them individually, and they disappeared.

And then, all the light in the room disappeared, and the humming noise was gone as well.

The two humans and the one Time Lord left in the room did not move for a moment.

That is, until the power centre on the wall, and the gigantic tangle of wires and cables all caught fire at once. The three of them instinctively ran for cover inside the TARDIS.

* * *

**Well, folks, all that remains now is an epilogue, which I will post as soon as I can. Thanks so much for reading, and don't forget to leave a review! :-)**


	18. Chapter 18

**The final chapter/epilogue of "Aliens From My Past." **

**As usual, I'm going to end this story by pointing out that it's definitely a different animal than the one I set out to write (that's a weird sentence, but you know what I mean). It was supposed to be just a fun thing, in which the Doctor and Martha meet Tom's ex, who is a serious pain in the ass, and it turns out she's an alien. Easy-peasy, right? Well, then I thought, "Okay, but what's the point of the story?" *Sigh* So then I had to figure out what to do with her, and with the Ten/Martha ship, and things seemed to snowball. And it turned out to be really fun, and difficult, and I thank you all for sticking with it! :-)**

**Got some positive feedback from the story's climax... it was very encouraging - thank you! So, I hope you find this an appropriate and satisfying ending for all of our characters! **

* * *

EIGHTEEN (Epilogue)

The Cervovores were rapidly losing their senses - Jean-Marc, Sylvie, and presumably François, wherever he may have been in the world. And then, the dank little room off the side of a carpark in Nîmes filled with a blinding light.

The light itself seemed to speak. "Emissaries of the Nemausus Order," it said. "Your power centre has been contaminated with the presence of an energy signature not of this planet. It has been identified as Gallifreyan, and deemed deadly. Your individual telepathic fields are contaminated as well, and the presence of this type of energy has been known to destroy emissaries. Therefore, you will be fully divested, effective immediately."

Jean-Marc and Sylvie (such as she was) looked at each other blankly, their coherence taking another serious downward turn.

Martha reckoned that if they had their faculties in order, they would be protesting, and railing at her and the Doctor, but as it was…

They stared far away as an even brighter light enveloped them individually, and they disappeared.

And then, all the light in the room disappeared, and the humming noise was gone as well.

The two humans and the one Time Lord left in the room did not move for a moment.

That is, until the power centre on the wall, and the gigantic tangle of wires and cables all caught fire at once. The three of them instinctively ran for cover inside the TARDIS.

Once inside, Martha asked, "What does it mean that they will be _divested_?"

"I don't know," the Doctor said. "Certainly they'll be _divested_ of their titles and duties as emissaries. It might mean, possibly, that they will attempt to decontaminate their brain function, and relieve them of the Time Lord taint, but… that would prove nigh on impossible, and frankly, I don't know if the Cervovores are sophisticated enough even to wrap their minds around what that could mean. Energy signatures and assimilation are part of their DNA, they do it second-nature, but… actually _knowing _the sciency bits, I dunno."

"Will they be destroyed?" she asked.

"Maybe," he said.

"_Divested_ sounds like a euphemism."

"It may very well be. But my guess is that the three of them will be thrown in a sanitarium on their home planet, and promptly forgotten."

"Quarantined, as a contagious threat or something?"

"That too."

"Will they remove all of their emissaries from the planet, now that they know you're involved?"

"That's what I'm hoping. But we'll need to do more research to find out for sure."

Martha turned to the maintenance man, who had not been paying attention to the conversation, because he'd been looking at the inside of the TARDIS as most people do. "Let's get you to the infirmary," she said, taking him gently by the arm. "Monsieur…"

"Huh?" he asked. Then. "Oh, my name is D'Arcy. Julien D'Arcy. And no, I'm fine, I won't need to go to hospital. I just need a clean pair of trousers."

She looked at the Doctor.

"Okay, yet another set of clothes, coming up," he sighed.

"We'll get you something to change into," she said to Monsieur D'Arcy. "But you need to be checked out for shock. Not in a hospital, but with us. Come on."

* * *

He was definitely in shock. He had no injuries, but rather, just needed time. Martha tried to insist that he stay at least one night for observation, but he declined.

And so, three hours later, D'Arcy walked away from the TARDIS toward a storage shed in the plaza in Nîmes, dressed in a pair of trousers and a shirt that the Doctor had pulled out of storage for him. The Doctor and Martha could see from where they were standing that the hotel where Gregoire had died was still being treated as a crime scene.

"Alain," Martha said, simply.

"Yep. I was thinking about him, too," the Doctor said. "I suppose he'll be relieved to hear that Jean-Marc is out of the picture."

"Oh yeah," she agreed. "Shall we go tell him?"

"Yes, let's."

And within an hour, they were back in Nîmes _yet again, _above ground, with Tom and Alain in tow, both with bags packed for a few days' stay, and sombre looks on their faces.

Alain had, indeed, been surprised and delighted to learn that Jean-Marc was no longer a concern for him, (though Tom had been somewhat dismayed to hear of Sylvie's ultimately uncertain fate) and reckoned that he'd better show his face back in Nîmes, to deal with the police, as well as Gregoire's family.

And also to deal with his grief.

"That's why I'm here, I guess," Tom whispered to Martha. "Moral support."

"Good," she sighed. "I mean, you may not have to help him through a messed-up relationship with a head-stealing alien, but now comes the mundane process of just… accepting the loss. Trying to rebuild. I reckon your shared experiences will make you the right man for _that_ job, as well."

"That's kind of what I'm hoping," he shrugged, watching Alain disappear into the hotel, more or less surrendering himself to the police officer who had been on watch. "They'll have been looking for him. They'll think he skipped town. Reckon he'll be arrested?"

"I'd say there's a good chance," said the Doctor. "But ultimately, there will be no evidence that Alain had anything to do with the murder. They'll never find a weapon, because there isn't one. Therefore, they will never be able to explain the violence with which the throat was torn. A human couldn't do that bare-handed, and there will be no evidence of an animal. Alain will tell them about Jean-Marc. And even if he doesn't, erm… Gergoire's body will be covered with the DNA of a third person whom they will never find, and that should be enough to plant doubt."

"Wow," Tom said. "This is going to be rough. Thanks, you two."

With that, he walked away, and followed Alain into the hotel.

* * *

When they shut the door to the TARDIS, the Doctor said, "Do you realise, this all started just a two days ago with a dinner among lovers and exes?"

"Guess I sort of dragged you into it."

"No complaints here," he shrugged. "Look how it ended up."

"Three insane aliens, one dead human, one ill-advised engagement terminated, two kindred souls have found friendship in one another… and then there's us." She leaned against the railing on the outside of the console platform, and crossed her arms.

"And then there's us," he echoed, practically whispering. He leaned against the console across from her.

"I suppose we'll have to go ahead and interview Anika Bhopal after all," she mused.

"Yep, probably should. We've still got the India cell to worry about – if only just to see whether they've pulled out, or moved, or what. But now we have another trick up our sleeve, at least, so…"

"Overloading them with Time Lord-ness."

"Yep."

"I can relate to that feeling."

"Martha."

"In any case, it was a cool trick. I didn't see it coming."

"Thanks," he said.

"When did you think of it?"

"Sometime between when we were discussing the Time Lord/Cervovore history in the library, and when… I took the energy reading."

"You took your own. I heard the sonic go off, while I was…" she said, blushing.

He nodded. "In that moment, I was almost as worked up as you. And I reckoned I wouldn't have to answer any questions until later, if I did it while you were too far gone to notice that I wasn't aiming it at you."

"Cheeky."

"Call it a hobby," he said with a smirk. Then his tone changed slightly. "And, I didn't want our first time to be just so I could take something from you. I'm not James Bond."

She smiled a bit sheepishly. "But _the act_ is all about taking. And also, giving back. I suppose that's why it works so well for the Cervovores."

"Well, normal _taking_ in the act… that's one thing. That's _indulging,_" he said, with a slight smile himself. "That's pleasure. I was definitely ready to do my share of that. But getting to _that point_ together, being right there on the edge of sanity with each other at our fingertips, and then using that very vulnerable moment to _extract _from you... it seemed creepy."

"Creepy?"

"Sort of, yeah."

"Is this because I said you could _use me_ to bring down François?"

"Partially," he admitted.

"Oh, Doctor, that's silly. It was just a poor choice of words, that's all!" she told him. "But, it worked out for the best, because we didn't just take down François, but all three of them, and possibly others… just need to do a bit of recon to find out for sure."

"Recon. Right."

She took a deep breath, then exhaled. "You know, I've got to be honest – talking to Anika, I don't fancy it."

"Why not?"

"This whole business makes me not want to talk to anyone ever again, for fear of who they might be underneath. And I don't mean just run-of-the-mill arseholes."

"Well, then, we'd better take a breather from interacting with others for a little while," he suggested, a barely-suppressed, wicked smile threatening to burst out. As he spoke, he crossed the six-foot space between them, and pressed her against the railing for a kiss. Pulling away, soft and low, he asked, "What did we say, Tahiti?"

"Maybe soon," she whispered. "At the moment, right here will do."

* * *

**Thank you again for reading! You guys have been so supportive of a very weird story! Please take the time to leave me a review, and...**

**On a different note, I'm a bit nervous because it's been years since I've posted the final chapter of a story without having _at least _two chapters from the next story already on-deck! I have only an outline - I've written nothing! Aaaagh!**

**I'm also nervous because the next story will be a departure from my norm! I have not yet written anything for the Thirteenth Doctor, and I think it's time to do so, don't you? Though obviously Ten is my favorite, I've written at least one thing for Nine, Eleven, and Twelve, and not just out of a sense of duty! And geekily enough, the new story will be a crossover, because my plot bunnies won't shut up. I hope you'll look for it when it gets posted, and I hope you'll give it a chance!**

**P.S. I do have new ideas for my old Ten/Martha m.o., but my muse has decided this comes first! -pretentious author's note. ;-)**


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